PUBLIUS

CORNELIUS

See also:

• PUBLIUS CORNELIUS DOLABELLA

DOLABELLA  , Roman general and son-in-law of Cicero, was born about 70 B.C . He was by far the most important of the Dolabellae, a family of the patrician gens Cornelia . In the civil wars he at first took the side of Pompey, introduced (as one of the tribunes) a bill proposing that all debts should be cancelled . This was strongly resisted by his colleagues, and led to serious disturbances in the city . Caesar, on ,his return from Alexandria, seeing the expediency of removing Dolabella from Rome, took him as one of his generals in the expedition to Africa and Spain . On Caesar's death Dolabella seized the insignia of the consulship (which had already been conditionally promised him), and, by making friends with Brutus and the other assassins, was confirmed in his office . When, however, M . Antonius offered him the command of the expedition against the Parthians and the province of Syria he changed sides at once . His journey to the province was marked by plundering, extortion and the murder of C . Trebonius, proconsul of Asia, who refused to allow him to enter Smyrna . He was thereupon declared a public enemy and superseded by C . Cassius (the murderer of Caesar),who attacked him in Laodicea .

On the

capture of the place, Dolabella ordered one of his soldiers to kill him (43) . Throughout his life he was a profligate and a spendthrift . See Cicero's Letters (ed . Tyrrell and Purser) ; G . Boissier, Cicero and his Friends (Eng. trans., 1897); Orelli, Onomasticon Tullianum; Dio Cassius xli . 40, xlii . 29, xliii . 51, xliv . 22, xlvi . 40, xlvii . 30; Appian, Bell. civ. iii . 7, iv .

6o .