Publius Cornelius Dolabella (c. 85/69 – 43 BC, also known by his adoptive name Lentulus)[5] was a Roman politician and general under the dictator Julius Caesar.
[15] As a tribune for the plebs for 47 BC, Dolabella had tried to bring about constitutional changes, one of which (to escape the urgent demands of his creditors) was a bill proposing that all debts should be canceled.
[16] Upon his return from Alexandria, Caesar, seeing the expediency of removing Dolabella from Rome, pardoned him,[17] and subsequently took him as one of his generals in the expedition to Africa and Spain.
[6] After Caesar had returned to Rome and been elected consul for the fifth time, he proposed to the Senate that his consulship be transferred to Dolabella.
[19] On Caesar's death in 44 BC, 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.
His journey to the province was marked by plundering, extortion, and the murder of Gaius Trebonius, governor of Asia, who refused to allow him to enter Smyrna.
[31] A similar version of Dolabella appears in William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra as an ally of Octavian, though again this is likely a composite character.