Read Caesar, Gallic War p.187 ("So now, what do I advise?")-p.188 ("...oppressed by perpetual slavery").

Augustus, Res Gestae 8.5: By new laws passed on my proposal I brought back into use many exemplary practices of our ancestors which were disappearing in our time, and in many ways I myself transmitted exemplary practices to posterity for their imitation.

Livy, From the Founding of the City preface 10-11: This is the thing which is especially healthy and fruitful for thinking about the way things are--that you should look upon the records of every example, each forming a noble monument, and then taking away something for you and your country to imitate and avoiding what is repulsive either in the undertaking or the outcome.
In fact, unless I am deceived by love of the project I have undertaken, there was never any state greater or more holy or richer in good examples....

Pliny, Letters 6.21.1-2: I am one of those who admire the men of old, but I do not (unlike some) despise the talents of our present age. For even a tired and weak nature sometimes gives birth to something praiseworthy. Just now I heard Vergilius Romanus [not the famous poet] reading a comedy of his, written according to the model of old comedy, and done so well that some day it may be a model too.

Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings

The memorable deeds and sayings of the city of Rome and of foreign nations, which have been so scattered in the works of authors that they cannot conveniently be learned, I have resolved to select from outstanding authors so as to spare those who want concrete instances the tedious task of research. I have not succumbed to the desire to treat all things. For who can consider the history of the world in a few volumes? Or who in his right mind would hope that he could write Roman and foreign history with greater accuracy or eloquence, so polished as it has been by our elders? (preface)

[Cicero, On Divination 1.78: Ants deposited grains of wheat in the mouth of the Phrygian Midas, asleep while a boy. It was predicted that he would be the richest of men, which happened. But when bees settled on the lips of the young Plato sleeping in his cradle, the response was that he would have singular sweetness of eloquence. So was future eloquence foretold in infancy.]

Ants deposited grains of wheat in the mouth of Midas, the conqueror of Phrygia, while asleep as a child. When his parents wondered what this prodigy presaged, the augurs answered that he would be the richest of all mortals. Nor was this an empty prophecy: For Midas excelled all kings in wealth. He recompensed the swaddling cloths of his infancy, given as a cheap present of the gods, with treasures heavy with gold and silver. (1.6.ext2)

Rightly and justly would I prefer the bees of Plato to the ants of Midas; the latter presage a frail and perishable, the former a firm and eternal happiness, but putting honey in the lips of the child sleeping in the cradle. When the seers herd this, they said that a singular sweetness of eloquence would flow from his mouth. And indeed in my opinion those bees, fed not on Mount Hymettus fragrant with thyme but on the Heliconian hills of the Muses, which teem by the goddesses' inspiration with every kind of learning seem to have instilled the sweetest nourishment of highest eloquence upon the greatest genius. (1.6.ext3)

Tiberius Gracchus was thought to have been an enemy of the fatherland--not without reason, since he had preferred his power to her safety. Nonetheless, the unswervingly loyal friend Gracchus had in Gaius Blossius Cumanus even in this criminal undertaking merits recognition. Judged a public enemy, afflicted with capital punishment, stripped of the final honor of burial, nevertheless he did not lack the goodwill of this man: for when the senate ordered the consuls Rupilius and Laenas to punish Gracchus' sympathizers in the ancient [i.e. fatal] fashion, and Blossius came to Laelius, on whose consultations the consuls especially replied, to plead for himself on the grounds of friendship, Laelius asked "What? If Gracchus had ordered you to burn the temple of Jupiter, would you have complied with his will from the friendship of which you boast?" He replied, "Gracchus would never have bade that." Enough, no, too much! He dared to defend practices condemned by the consensus of the entire senate. But the next is even more daring and dangerous: hemmed in by Laelius' continued questioning, he stuck at the same level of fidelity and seven said he would have done it if only Gracchus had given him the signal. Who would have thought him wrong to keep silent? Would would not even have thought him prudent to speak as circumstance and necessity demanded? But Blossius was unwilling to let an honorable silence or prudent tongue guard his own safety, lest he abandon to any degree the memory of this unfortunate friendship. (4.7.1)

The horror of his eventual fall was clearly and openly announced to Gaius Gracchus. For in a dream he saw the image of his brother Tiberius saying that there was no way he [Gaius] could escape the same fate which had befallen him [Tiberius]. Many heard Gracchus talking about this even before he had entered into the tribunate during which he met his brother's fate. (1.7.6)

During the Latin War Publius Decius Mus, who was the first to win the consulship for his family saw that the Roman forces were bending and about to break, and vowed his own life for the salvation of the republic. He urged his horse straight into the middle of the [enemy] line, seeking death for himself but salvation for his country. After killing many, he himself fell, cut down by numerous spears. From his wounds and blood arose the unhoped-for victory.

He would have been the only such general had not he produced a like-minded son. The latter, in his fourth consulate, followed his father's example with a similar vow, in an equally difficult battle, and shored up his city's fading and slipping strength with a similar death. Thus it is hard to tell if the Roman state got better use from having the Decii as generals or from losing them, since their life kept her from being conquered; their death allowed her to conquer. (5.6.5-6)