on to decide a question.
Most matters were settled by a DECREE OF THE SENATE (_Senatus
Consultum_). To be sure the Comitia declared for war or peace, but the
Senate conducted the war and settled the conditions of peace. It also
usually assigned the commands, organized the provinces, and managed the
finances.

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