The Cornelian families very many and even though we don’t always information on their relationships with each other, the number of Cornelians active at any given moment during the republican era is quite staggering.
Of some Cornelian families we know quite a lot, both e.g. Cornelii Scipiones and Cornelii Sullae, had such illustrious representatives that they shaped the whole Roman history, if not even world history. However we know quite little on obviously very influential Cornelii Lentuli.
To this less well known group of Cornelian families belongs also the Cornelii Dolabellae. They were a long running line of Cornelii, and we do not know when they separated from the hypothetical common ancestor of all Cornelii. Quite an influental family line they were still: they held consulships at least 283, 159, 81 and 44. So not every generation had consul, but the long family history of consular level extending for over 300 years is no little achievement. The line also survived long into imperial era helding consulships and important military posts under first emperors.
Drawing a familytree of Cornelii Dolabellae is not an easy task however: we know of very few father-son pairs and even less on marriages. In the following I have drawn known filiations and placed hypothetical generations into same levels chronologically. A picture emerges of vast multi-line family (e.g. cos 81 and pr 81 having both same first name). There are possibilities that e.g. RE 132 could have been the grandfather of RE 134 or father of RE 133 or son of RE 131… but we do not have any evidence to support these hypothetical connections. I have therefore opted to leave them out from the chart.
Nobilitas 