Unfortunately this city, otherwise so perfect, was frequently disturbed by earthquakes, sometimes accompanied by great upheavals of the sea; but in spite of the unsafe foundations of the buildings, especially of the larger and more important ones, the emperors did not hesitate to enrich the city, rebuilt by Constantine the Great in 330, with imposing edifices. As Constantine himself, with a perennial passion for building, had endeavoured to cover the land for about fifteen furlongs around the city with edifices of every possible kind, the succeeding emperors were not to be thought lacking; and so, up to the time when the two empires were separated, the residences of the emperors on the seven hills in the fourteen departments were, according to models of Rome, of no mean pretensions. In the first division, which took in the east points of the neck of land washed by the Golden Horn and the Bosporus, was the great imperial palace, which included, besides the private residence of the emperor, with the throne room and the apartment made entirely of porphyry in which the princes and princesses were born, the houses of all the chief people in office at court, extensive laundries, and a host of most beautiful halls, courts, and gardens. Other palaces were attached, as the one inhabited by Theodosius’ daughter Placidia, and there were also fifteen private baths supplied by the warm springs of Arcadia; and through the chalœ, with its surrounding piazza and gilded roofed entrance, the way led to the second division, in which stood the “great church” built by Constantine and rebuilt later by Justinian as St. Sophia, and the residences of the senators, all carried out in the best style with the costliest marble. The inartistic Constantine had had the statues of the Rhodian Zeus and the Athene of Lindos taken from their original standing places and put in front of these buildings. Lastly came the Baths of Zeuxippus in the Grove of Zeus, sufficiently immense to enable two thousand men to bathe there daily.[b] THE EAST AND THE WEST The number and importance of the Gothic forces in the Roman armies during the reign of Theodosius had enabled several of their commanders to attain the highest rank; and among these officers, Alaric was the most distinguished by his future greatness.