oa La sententia Servitii et l’endettement des cités libres (60 av. J.-C.)

The motion, concerning the problems of debts of free communities, proposed by P. Servilius Isauricus the son and inspired by Cato, was accepted by the senate thanks to the wide support of the lower senators. It aimed at the corruption and the abuse of power, both by the local governors and in the senate, and thus announces the lex Julia de repetundis, containing a clause to the same effect. The sententia Servilii was not directed against the equites or publicani, but against those who were in the first place responsible for the mismanagement of the provinces. Consequently, the malevolentia, that, according to Cicero, made the motion popular, should be not be interpreted as a hostile feeling of the senators against the knights, but as a resentment by the majority of the senators of the exploits of the 'mighty few’ (the pauci potentes). The motion presumably confirmed the incompetence of the provincial governors in cases of debts of free communities, and provided guidelines for the treatment of these cases in Rome