The Colossus of Rhodes

Abstract

I think that we all know about the Colossus of Rhodes—one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We remember him from our childhood's days. Was there not some story of a great statue standing astride the harbour of that old-world port—Rhodes, somewhere among the Isles of Greece? And if we look up a Classical Dictionary we shall find him described as being a bronze figure of the sun god, Helios, and as standing 70 cubits, that is, more than 100 feet in height. We read that in the year three hundred and three before Christ, Demetrios Poliorketes, King of Macedon, becoming tired of his long-protracted Siege of Rhodes, returned to Greece, leaving his siege-train behind him. The citizens of Rhodes sold the weapons for 300 talents, and devoted the money to the erection of a statue of their god: a statue, moreover, which they hoped would compare favourably with those of their great ally, Egypt. The citizens of Rhodes called upon the sculptor Chares of Lindos: a town on the island of Rhodes not far from the capital. He was a pupil of the Greek sculptor, Lysippos, who had just constructed at Tarentium a bronze statue of Zeus, about 70 feet in height. Chares undertook the work. The colossus took twelve years to erect, from 292 to 280 B.C. It was thrown down by an earthquake some sixty years later, and remained on the ground, as one of the sights of Rhodes, for nearly 900 years. When the Saracens conquered the island in A.D. 653, their general broke up the figure and sold the bronze to a Jewish dealer. Not a fragment of the Colossus remains to-day, and no complete copy of the figure exists.