Colossus of Rhodes

This enormous statue of the god Helios was constructed on the Greek island of Rhodes.

Date: Constructed 292-280 b. c.e., according to Pliny the Elder

Category: Art and architecture

Locale: City of Rhodes, Island of Rhodes

Summary The Colossus (koh-LAW-suhs) was erected by the city of Rhodes to commemorate its successful resistance to Demetrius Polior-

This engraving depicts the Colossus of Rhodes astride the entrance to the harbor. (Martin Heemskerck)

Cetes’ year-long siege of 305-304 b. c.e. The Rhodians financed this statue of their patron deity, the Sun god Helios, from the sale ofPoliorcetes’ abandoned siege equipment. The appearance of the statue, probably a standing nude male wearing a crown of Sun rays, is known only from ancient sources, mainly Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Philon of Byzantium. Reportedly, the Rhodian sculptor Chares of Lindos, a pupil of Lysippus, was commissioned to oversee the project. The statue was composed of cast bronze sections over an iron framework and stood some 110 feet (33 meters) tall on a white marble base (compare the Statue of Liberty at 152 feet, or 46 meters). It was steadied by stones placed inside and took twelve years to complete.

The Colossus has been popularly depicted from the medieval period onward with its legs spanning the entrance to the Rhodian harbor later known as Mandraki. This reconstruction, however, is not possible, because the distance is more than 1,300 feet (396 meters). The Colossus stood only fifty-six years before it fell, broken at the knees, in an earthquake around 226 b. c.e. The statue lay in ruins until Arabs, invading Rhodes in 654 c. e., sold the remains as scrap metal to a Syrian. Tradition has it that nine hundred camels were needed to transport the fragments.

Significance The Colossus of Rhodes was the largest recorded statue from antiquity and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Further Reading

Berg, Christopher. Amazeing Art: Wonders of the Ancient World. New York: Quill, 2001.

Clayton, Peter A., and Martin J. Price, eds. Reprint. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Perrottet, Tony. “Journey to the Seven Wonders.” Smithsonian 35, no. 3 (June, 2004): 114.

Romer, John, and Elizabeth Romer. The Seven Wonders of the World: A History of the Modern Imagination. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.

Lee Ann Turner

See also: Art and Architecture; Demetrius Poliorcetes; Lysippus; Strabo. 250