Three years later, Athanaric[156] marvelled at the variety of peoples which poured into the city, as they have ever since, like streams from different points into a common reservoir. Soon the corn fleets of Alexandria, Asia, Syria, and Phœnicia, were unable to provide the city with sufficient bread.[157] The houses were packed so closely that the citizens, whether at home or abroad, felt confined and oppressed, while to walk the streets was dangerous, on account of the number of the beasts of burden that crowded the thoroughfares. Building-ground was in such demand that portions of the sea along the shores of the city had to be filled in, and the erections on that artificial land alone formed a considerable town.[158] Sozomon goes so far as to affirm that Constantinople had grown more populous than Rome.[159] This increase of the population is explained, in part, by the attractions which a capital, and especially one founded recently, offered alike to rich and poor as a place of residence and occupation. The ecclesiastical dignity of the city, when elevated to the second rank in the hierarchy of the Church, made it, moreover, the religious centre of the East, and drew a large body of ecclesiastics and devout persons within its bounds. The presence and incursions of the Goths and the Huns south of the Danube drove many of the original inhabitants of the invaded districts for shelter behind the fortifications of the city, and led multitudes of barbarians thither in search of employment or the pleasures of civilized life. Then, it must be remembered that no capital is built in a day. To make the city worthy of its name involved great labour, and demanded an army of workmen of every description. There were many structures which Constantine had only commenced; the completion of the fortifications of the city had been left to Constantius; Julian found it necessary to construct a second harbour on the side of the Sea of Marmora; Valens was obliged to improve the water-works of the city by the erection of the fine aqueduct which spans the valley between the Fourth and Fifth Hills. And how large a number of hands such works required appears from the fact that when the aqueduct was repaired, in the ninth century, 6000 labourers were brought from the provinces to Constantinople for the purpose.[160]