Colossus of Rhodes - The decision to erect the statue, Construction, Destruction, The myth, The Colossus in modern times

A huge, bronze statue of the Sun-god, Apollo, which bestrode the harbour entrance of the seaport of Rhodes. It was built c.280 BC.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a giant statue of the god Helios, erected on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos, a pupil of Lysippos, between 292 BC and 280 BC. It was roughly the same size as the Statue of Liberty in New York, although it stood on a lower platform.

The decision to erect the statue

Alexander the Great died at an early age in 323 BC without having had time to put into place any plans for his succession. During the fighting Rhodes had sided with Ptolemy, and when Ptolemy eventually took control of Egypt, Rhodes and Ptolemaic Egypt formed an alliance which controlled much of the trade in the eastern Mediterranean. In 305 BC he had his son Demetrius Poliorcetes (now a famous general in his own right) invade Rhodes with an army of 40,000. He tried again with an even larger land-based tower named Helepolis, but the Rhodian defenders stopped this by flooding the land in front of the walls so that the rolling tower could not move. 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 sixty-foot-high statue of Zeus. In order to pay for the construction of the Colossus, the Rhodians sold all of the siege equipment that Demetrius left behind in front of their city.

Construction

Ancient accounts (which differ to some degree) describe the structure as being built around several stone columns (or towers of blocks) forming the interior of the structure, which stood on a fifteen-meter-high (fifty-foot) white marble pedestal near the Mandraki harbour entrance. The statue itself was over 34 metres (110 feet) tall.

After twelve years, in 280 BC, the great statue was completed.

Destruction

The statue stood for only fifty-six years until Rhodes was hit by an earthquake in 224 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. 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. The buyer had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home.

The myth

The harbour-straddling Colossus was a figment of later imaginations. 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 …" ("The New Colossus", the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty). Shakespeare's Cassius in Julius Caesar (I,ii,136–38) 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 Colossus in modern times

Media reports in 1989 initially suggested that large stones found on the seabed off the coast of Rhodes might have been the remains of the Colossus; Those in favour say it would boost tourism in Rhodes greatly, but those against construction say it would cost too large an amount (over 100 million euro). In Disney's Hercules the satyr Philoctetes lives on the Isle of Rhodes, and there are visible bits of the statue on the island such as the head and still-standing feet. In Sergio Leone's sword and sandal film Il Colosso di Rodi (1961) the Colossus stands spread-legged over the only entrance to Rhodes' harbor. In this instance the statue is hollow (like the Statue of Liberty) and is armed with defensive weaponry. Sylvia Plath's poem "The Colossus", refers to the Colossus of Rhodes. Perhaps the most famous reference to the Colossus, however, is in the immortal poem, "The New Colossus," by Emma Lazarus, written in 1883 and inscribed on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty in New York City's harbor. Marvel Comics' Colossus, a member of the X-Men, is named after the Colossus of Rhodes.