The increase which the tribune’s power underwent during this period almost made his office a new one. With their characteristic hesitation about introducing radical changes in the constitution, and with their tendency to take concrete action, the Romans at the outset had required the tribune to intervene in person when a citizen was being harshly treated. But their common sense showed them in course of time that it was far better to allow the tribune to record his opposition to a bill when it was under consideration than to have him prevent the execution of a law. This change placed a tremendous power in the hands of the tribune in his struggle with the senate and the nobility. In the early period the senate had been composed of the representatives of the leading clans, but as public business became more complex, in making out the list of senators the censors gave a preference to ex-magistrates, who were already experienced in public affairs, and in course of time this practice was crystallized into law. The men who thus became senators by virtue of having held the praetorship, or consulship, for instance, were elected to a magistracy, to be sure, by the people, but the prestige of a candidate who could point to magistrates among his ancestors was so great that a “new man” had little or no chance of being elected against him. The results were twofold. A new nobility was established composed of ex-magistrates and their lineal descendants. In the second place the senate, being henceforth made up of men who had had experience in administration at home and abroad, easily gained supremacy both over the magistrates, who held office for a year only, and over the popular assemblies, which were unwieldy and ill-informed on important matters. For a century and a half, down to the time of the Gracchi (i.e., the second century B.C.), this nobility maintained itself, and Rome was ruled by a parliament. This state of things is the more astonishing in view of the fact that at the beginning of this period the democracy had won a complete victory, and the action of the popular assembly was accepted as final on all matters. The anomaly is easily explained by the fact that the senate controlled the magistrates; they only could bring bills before the assemblies, and they dared not submit measures of which the senate disapproved.