The causes for this ascendency of the Senate are not hard to find. It was a body made up of men capable of conducting affairs. It could be convened at any time, whereas the voters of the Comitias were scattered over all Italy, and, if assembled, would not be competent to decide questions demanding knowledge of military matters and foreign policy. The Senate and the Roman nobility were in the main the same. All patricians were nobles, but all nobles were not patricians. The patricians were the descendants of the original founders of the city. The nobles were the descendants of any one who had filled one of the following six curule offices, viz. Dictator, Magister Equitum, Consul, Interrex, Praetor, or Curule Aedile. These nobles possessed the right to place in their hall, or carry in funeral processions, a wax mask of this ancestor, and also of any other member of the family who had held a curule office. A plebeian who first held this office was called a _novus homo_, or "new man." The Senate, thus made up of patricians and nobles, had at this time the monopoly of power. Legally, however, it had no positive authority. The right of the people to govern was still valid, and there was only wanting a magistrate with the courage to remind them of their legal rights, and urge the exercise of them. Such a magistrate was found in TIBERIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS. With him was ushered in the contest which lasted for more than a century, and brought to the surface some of the proudest names of Roman history. On one side or the other we find them,--MARIUS and SULLA, CAESAR and POMPEY, AUGUSTUS and ANTONY--arraying Rome against herself, until the glories of the Republic were swallowed up in the misrule and dishonor of the Empire. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus the elder (see Chapter XX.) belonged to the nobility, but not to the aristocracy. He married CORNELIA, the daughter of Africanus the elder. They had twelve children, of whom all but three died young. Two sons and a daughter lived to maturity. The daughter, SEMPRONIA, married Africanus the younger. The sons, TIBERIUS and GAIUS, grew up under the care of their noble and gifted mother, who was left a widow when they were mere boys. Tiberius (164-133) entered the army, and served under his brother-in-law during the third Punic war. Ten years later (136) he was Quaestor in Spain, where he won the affections of the people by adhering to the mild policy which his father had previously followed. His popular measures here displeased his brother-in-law, and he ceased to be a favorite with him. On his return home he passed through Tuscany where he was astonished to see large tracts of the _ager publicus_ (see Chapter VII.) cultivated by slave gangs, while the free poor citizens of the Republic were wandering in towns without employment, and deprived of the land which, according to law (see the Licinian Rogations), should have been divided among them, and not held in large quantities by the rich land-owners.