The Colossus of Rhodes
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During the fighting Rhodes had sided with Ptolemy, and when Ptolemy eventually took control of Egypt, they formed an alliance which controlled much of the trade in the eastern Mediterranean.
Another of Alexander's generals, Antigonus, was upset by this turn of events. In 305 BC he had his son Demetrius (now a famous general on his own) invade Rhodes with an army of 40,000. However, the city was well defended, and Demetrius had to start construction of a number of massive siege towers in order to gain access to the walls. The first was mounted on six ships, which blew over in a storm before they could be used. He tried again with an even larger land-based tower, but the Rhodian defenders stopped this by flooding the land in front of the walls so the tower could not move. In 304 BC a force of ships sent by Ptolemy arrived, and Demetrius's army left in a hurry, leaving most of their equipment. Despite his failure at Rhodes, Demetrius earned the nickname Poliorcetes, "besieger of cities" by his successes elsewhere.
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To celebrate their victory the Rhodians decided to build a giant statue of their patron god Helios. Construction was left to the direction of Chares, a native of Rhodes, who had been involved with large scale statues before. His teacher, the famed sculptor Lysippus, had constructed a 60-foot high statue of Zeus.
The Colossus of Rhodes, imagined in this engraving by Martin Heemskerck, was built about 280 BCE. Standing 30 m (100 ft) high, it was built to guard the entrance to the harbour at Rhodes. The ancient Greeks and Romans considered it one of the Seven Wonders of the World.Ancient accounts (which differ to some degree) describe the structure as being built around several stone columns (or towers of blocks) on the interior of the structure, sitting on a 50 foot high white marble pedestal near the harbour entrance (others claim on a breakwater in the harbour). Iron beams were driven into the stone towers, and bronze plates attached to the bars formed the skinning. Much of the material was melted down from the various weapons Demetrius's army left behind, and the abandoned second siege tower was used for scaffolding around the lower levels. Upper portions were built with the use of a large earthen ramp. The statue itself was over 34 meters (110 feet) tall.
Construction completed in 282 BC after 12 years. The statue stood for only 56 years until Rhodes was hit by an earthquake in 226 BC. The statue snapped at the knees, and fell over onto the land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue, but an oracle made the Rhodians afraid that they had offended Helios, and they declined to rebuild it. The remains lay on the ground for over 800 years, and even broken they were so impressive that many traveled to see them. Pliny the Elder remarked that few people could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and that each of its fingers was larger than most statues.
In AD 654 an Arab force under Muawiyah I captured Rhodes, who sold the remains to a travelling salesman from Edessa, Mesopotamia, according to the chronicler Theophanes. The purchaser had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home. Pieces continued to turn up for sale for years, after being found on the caravan route.
Many older illustrations (above) show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbour mouth with ships passing under it - ... the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land .... Shakespeare's Cassius in Julius Caesar (II,i,136-8) says of Caesar:
""Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves."
The harbor-straddling Colossus was a figment of later imaginations.
© 2004 - Dimitris Liarelis