This prodigious Statue, which, was accounted one of the seven wonders of
the world, was planned, and probably executed by Chares, an ancient
sculptor of Lindus, and a disciple of Lysippus. According to Strabo, the
statue was of brass, and was seventy cubits, or one hundred feet high;
and Chares was employed upon it twelve years. It was said to have been
placed at the entrance of the harbor of Rhodes, with the feet upon two
rocks, in such a manner, that the ships then used in commerce could pass
in full sail between them. This colossus, after standing fifty-six
years, was overthrown by an earthquake. An oracle had forbidden the
inhabitants to restore it to its former position, and its fragments
remained in the same position until A. D. 667, when Moaviah, a calif of
the Saracens, who invaded Rhodes in that year, sold them to a Jewish
merchant, who is said to have loaded nine hundred camels with them.
Pliny says that Chares executed the statue in three years, and he
relates several interesting particulars, as that few persons could
embrace its thumb, and that the fingers were as long as an ordinary
statue. Muratori reckons this one of the fables of antiquity. Though the
accounts in ancient authors concerning this colossal statue of Apollo
are somewhat contradictory, they all agree that there was such a statue,
seventy or eighty cubits high, and so monstrous a fable could not have
been imposed upon the world in that enlightened age. Some antiquarians
have thought, with great justice, that the fine head of Apollo which is
stamped upon the Rhodian medals, is a representation of that of the
Colossus.