2Caesar, accordingly, being compelled, as I have said, to carry on warfare even in the winter, did not attack Corduba, which was strongly guarded, but turned his attention to Ategua, a city in which he had learned there was an abundance of grain. Although it was a strong place, he hoped by the size of his army and the sudden terror of his appearance to alarm the inhabitants and capture it. And in a short time he had cut it off by a palisade and surrounded it by a ditch.