The skirmishes were now carried on daily, and with increasing bitterness. After seventeen days of unremitting labor, the Romans succeeded in raising their banks opposite the Antonine tower. But John of Gischala and some heroic followers of Bar-Giora, creeping through a subterranean passage, destroyed these works by setting fire to them. With the ever-increasing danger grew the heroism of the besieged. All Josephus' persuasive words, prompted by Titus, were useless. There were but two courses left open to them--victory or death. At the very outset of the siege they had learned what they would have to expect from the Romans. Titus, surnamed "Delight of all Mankind," crucified, at times, five hundred of his prisoners in a day. Again, he would send them back into the city after cutting off their hands. He was, however, forced to acknowledge to himself that the siege would be one of long duration. But the horrors of famine were soon to come to his assistance. All egress from and ingress into the besieged city being rigorously prevented, the provisions began to fail amongst the thickly-crowded populace. Houses and streets were filled with unburied corpses, and the pangs of starvation seemed to destroy all feelings of pity in the unfortunate survivors. The prospect--a terrible one indeed--of a lingering death sent numbers of deserters to the Romans, where they met with a pitiful fate. As the number of these unfortunate fugitives increased, the Zealots treated those whom they suspected of defection with still greater severity. A conspiracy being discovered amongst Bar-Giora's followers, that leader relentlessly punished the guilty with death. They were all beheaded in full view of the Roman camp, amongst them being Matthias Boëthus, of priestly family.