Servius Cornelius Dolabella Petronianus


Servius Cornelius Dolabella Petronianus was a Roman senator in the latter part of the first century. As the colleague of the emperor Domitian, he was one of the eponymous consuls of AD 86.
Petronianus was the son of Petronia and one of the Cornelii Dolabellae. His mother had previously been married to Aulus Vitellius, the future emperor, while his father had been adopted by Servius Sulpicius Galba, whom Otho overthrew in AD 69, the "Year of the Four Emperors". Petronianus' father was put to death by Vitellius upon his accession.
There is considerable uncertainty about the identity of Petronianus' father. Suetonius, the only ancient historian to mention his praenomen, calls him Gnaeus, while the filiation of Servius Cornelius Dolabella Metilianus Pompeius Marcellus, consul suffectus in AD 113 and who is considered the likely son of Petronianus, is Ser. f. P. n. P. pronepos P. abnepos. If Petronianus was the father of Marcellus, then according to Marcellus' filiation Petronianus' father, grandfather, and great-grandfather would have been named Publius. Petronianus' father might then be the same Cornelius Dolabella who was consul suffectus in AD 55 or 56, and probably the same Cornelius Dolabella who had been inducted into a priestly college, probably the Salii Palatini, in 38 or 39; but this consul's praenomen is also uncertain; on the basis of Marcellus' filiation, some scholars infer that he was Publius, and that he was the father of Petronianus.