Such was the formidable appearance of the city, however, that a council was held to consider whether it would be advisable to attack it at once, or, remaining beneath the walls, to wait and see if famine would spare the work of the sword, or spring bring fresh resources to the besiegers. This opinion was soon negatived, and the attack began; but the walls of Antioch resisted all efforts. Every means then known was employed by the crusaders to batter the heavy masonry of those mighty bulwarks, but in vain. Moveable towers, and catapults, and mangonels, and battering-rams, were all used ineffectually; while the besieged, in a variety of sallies, harassed night and day the Christian camp, and destroyed many of the assailants. The consequences[315] of their first improvidence were soon bitterly visited on the heads of the crusaders. Famine began to spread in the camp; and pestilential diseases, engendered by unwholesome food and the neighbourhood of a large tract of marshy land, in the autumn and winter seasons, raged through the hosts of the Cross, and slew more fearfully even than the arrows of the enemy. Death in every shape grew familiar to their eyes, and the thought of passing to another world lost all the salutary horror which is so great a check on vice. Crimes of various descriptions were common;[316] and the sharp urgency of famine, joined with that horrible contempt of all human ties, which the extreme of mortal need alone can bring, induced many of the crusaders, deprived of other aliments, to feed upon the dead bodies of the slain.[317] At the same time, the Turks suffered not their miseries to pass without aggravation, but kept the unsparing sword constantly at their throats;[318] while, by a number of spies, dressed in the garb of Greeks and Armenians, the garrison became aware of all the movements and necessities of their besiegers.[319] To correct the crimes of the camp, a court was instituted, with full power to try and punish; while, to prevent the immorality which was growing too glaring for endurance, the women were separated from the general host, and provided for and protected apart.