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.’ 1
1 Cf. Polyaenus, Strategemata, viii. 16. 5; Velleius Paterculus, ii. 4; Valerius Maximus, vi. 2. 3.