Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

When the older men asked the defeated soldiers why they were such cowards as to flee from the men they had so often pursued, one of the Numantians is said to have replied that the sheep were still the same sheep, but another man was their shepherd.

After he had captured Numantia and celebrated his second triumph, he had a falling out with Gaius Gracchus in regard to the Senate and the allies; and the people, feeling much aggrieved, set out to shout him down on the rostra. But he said, The battle-cry of armed hosts has never discomfited me, and much less can that of a rabble of whom I know full well that Italy is not their real mother, but their stepmother. [*](Cf. Polyaenus, Strategemata, viii. 16. 5; Velleius Paterculus, ii. 4; Valerius Maximus, vi. 2. 3.)

When the men about Gracchus cried out, Kill the tyrant, he said, Very naturally those who feel hostile towards our country wish to make away with me first; for it is not possible for Rome to fall while Scipio stands, nor for Scipio to live when Rome has fallen.