= Zenobius 6.52, except that Zenobius finishes off the phrase with the verb semnu/netai ('he/she puts on airs').
On the general sources of the proverbs in the Suda see Adler vol.I p.XIX.
[1] Often modern scholars have understood the Aspis to be the northern and lower of the two hills which overlooked the ancient site of Argos [Myth, Place] to the north and east, the present-day Profitis Ilias. Archaeological investigation has demonstrated that the hill contained religious sanctuaries as well as an important Bronze Age settlement (Tomlinson, pp. 16-17, and in brief OCD(4) p.149) and that it was fortified in the archaic and classical periods. If this identification is correct, there is perhaps some sarcasm in the proverb, in that capturing the Aspis would be a less daunting task than conquering the much higher neighboring citadel called Larisa. Congratulating one's self on that feat would therefore be something like killing a gecko and proclaiming one's self a dragonslayer. Unfortunately, the bulk of scholarly opinion (follwing Lambrinoudakis, Piérart, and others) now identifies "Aspis" as simply another name for the Larisa, or for part of it; cf. Plutarch, Agis & Cleomenes 38, 42, and Pyrrhus 32, where "Aspis" is the evidently the term used for the primary Argive citadel and is described as difficult to scale (which is hardly true of the gentle slopes of Profitis Ilias).
[2] This may be a reference to the picked 1000-man company which Thucydides refers to separately from the main Argive army in his account of the battle of Mantineia in 418 BCE (Thuc. 5.67.2, web address 1; cf. Tomlinson, pp. 176-84, on fifth-century-BCE Argive military organization). Thucydides does not refer to this company by any specific name other than 'the thousand picked men' but states in addition that "the state had given [them] a long course of military training at the public expense".