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The Colossus of Rhodes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Herbert Maryon
Herbert Maryon
Affiliation:
British Museum
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Extract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 76 , November 1956 , pp. 68 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1956

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References

1 Philon of Byzantiom

De Septem Orbis Spectaculis. chapter 4. Kindly translated for me by Professor R. J. H. Jenkins, of King's College, London.

2 Fabricius, J. A., Bibliotheca Graeca III. 24. 3Google Scholar; Kroll, W., in RE. Philon, no. 49 (XX, 1941, p. 54).Google Scholar

3 Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, Book XIV, Chapter 2. 5.

4 Pliny, Natural History, XXXIV, Chapter 18, translated by J. Bostock and H. T. Riley.

5 Constantine Porphyrogennetos, Emperor of the East, De Administrando Imperio, 20–21.Google Scholar Ed. G. F. Moravczik. Budapest, 1949. Translated by Professor R. J. H. Jenkins.

6 Michael I (Kindasi) Patriarch of the Jacobites.

7 Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarch of Antioch (1166–99)), ed. by Chabot, J-B., Tome II, 1904Google Scholar, fasc. III, Book XI, Chapter 10.

8 Eusebius, Thesaurus Temporum, 1658, Amsterdam, pp. 137–8, editor Josephi Justi Scaligeri.

9 Lemprière, John, Classical Dictionary, a new edition, revised 1949.Google Scholar

10 Claro Rhodos, Vol. V, 2, 1932–40, plate II and fig. 15, pp. 24–6.

11 Flinders Petrie, Weights and Measures.

12 The late Mr. F. G. Skinner, Keeper of the Department of Metrology, Science Museum, South Kensington, London, wrote two authoritative articles on the history of measures and of weights for Chambers Encyclopaedia, published in 1950. He defined the Egyptian Royal Cubit as 20·62 ± 0·2 inches.

13 One talent may be taken as weighing 57 pounds.

14 Best, C. H. and Taylor, N. B., The Physiological Basis of Medical Practice, 5th edition, p. 619Google Scholar, quoting Du Bois, Basal Metabolism.

15 Or 0·061 inch, or 1·5 mm.

16 Most of these figures were kindly given me by the editor of the magazine Health and Strength.

17 See van Gelder, H., Geschichte der Alten Rhodier, 1900, pp. 382–91.Google Scholar He gives many references to the earlier writers.

18 This paper is based on an account read to the Society of Antiquaries of London on 3rd December, 1953.