Losing the battle might well mean starvation would kill them all slowly in the end, but not today.
However, even at best, rain can be unreliable and a dry year will mean a lean harvest and hunger, if not starvation.
He is disgusted, and decides then that he would rather take the path of righteousness even if it meant starvation.
For the natives, the enforced deliveries often meant starvation, since they were left with no time to grow and harvest their crops.
It does not kill, but it crushes people's spirits and often leaves poor farmers unable to work, which can mean starvation.
But remaining at this level meant starvation.
Regular inundations were a cause for celebration; low waters often meant famine and starvation.
Defeat had been at hand for a sedge now within the citadel would surely mean starvation and death.
To have gone up the mountains would have meant early starvation.
Half a million would have meant starvation.