This was a celebrated brazen image of Apollo, of the enormous hight of
one hundred and five Grecian, or one hundred and twenty-five English
feet, placed at the entrance of one of the harbors of the city of
Rhodes, (anciently Rhodus,) which is about twenty miles from the coast
of Lycia and Caria, in the Mediterranean sea. The island of Rhodes is
about one hundred and twenty miles in circumference, and was early
occupied by a colony of Greeks from Crete and Thessaly, who in time
became both wealthy and powerful. Their capital city was on the east of
the island; it was built in the form of an amphitheater, and had
numerous splendid buildings, among which was a temple to Apollo. Having
for a time submitted to the power of Alexander the Great, they afterward
refused to assist Antigonus in his war with Egypt, when he sent his son
Demetrius against them, with an immense fleet and army. They, however,
being aided by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, were enabled to repulse his
forces and to oblige him to agree to a peace. And he being thus
reconciled to them, in admiration of the courage they had displayed,
presented to them all the engines he had employed in the attack, by the
sale of which, for three hundred talents, they raised the famous
colossus, a view of which is given in the cut.
[Illustration: THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.]
This immense statue, as already said, was of brass, and was erected in
honor of Apollo, the tutelary god of the island, in acknowledgment of
the protection he was supposed to have rendered the Rhodians in their
recent conflict. It was the workmanship of Chares, (a pupil of Lysippus,
a celebrated sculptor and statuary of Greece,) who, with an assistant,
was engaged in the work for more than twelve years. The hight of the
statue, as already said, was one hundred and twenty-five feet; its thumb
was so large that few people could grasp it; and the fingers were each
larger than the bodies of statues of ordinary size. It was hollow, and
to counterbalance the weight, and render it steady on its feet, its legs
were lined with heavy masonry; and within them, were winding staircases
leading to the top of the statue, from which one could easily see Syria,
and the ships sailing to Egypt. It is supposed to have stood, with
distended legs, on the two moles which formed the entrance of the
harbor; but as the city had two harbors, one twenty, and the other fifty
feet wide at the entrance, it has been supposed to have been at the
narrowest. It bore a light, or lantern, so as to serve as a light-house;
but whether on the head, or in one of the hands, as represented in the
cut, is not certainly known. The statue was erected B. C. 300, and after
having stood about sixty years, was thrown down by an earthquake. After
its fall, the Rhodians solicited help from the kings of Macedonia and
Egypt, and in other countries, to enable them to restore it; and so
great was the commercial importance of Rhodes, that their appeal was
promptly met by magnificent gifts; but the oracle at Delphos forbade
them again to raise the colossus. The statue then remained in ruins for
the space of eight hundred and ninety-four years, when, in the year 672
A. D., it was sold by the Saracens, who were then masters of the island,
to a Jewish merchant of Edessa, who loaded nine hundred camels with the
metal which had composed it, and which, estimated at eight hundred
pounds for each camel-load, would have amounted to seven hundred and
twenty thousand pounds’ weight.
The character of Rhodian art was a mixed Græco-Asiatic style, which
seems to have delighted in executing gigantic and imposing conceptions;
for beside this celebrated colossus, (which was one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world,) there were three thousand other statues adorning
the city; and of these, about one hundred were on such a scale of size
and magnificence, that the presence of any one of them would have been
thought sufficient to dignify almost any other spot. The architecture of
Rhodes was of the most stately character: the plan of the city was by
the same architect who built the Piræus at Athens; and all was designed
with such symmetry, that Aristides remarks, “It is as if it had been one
house.” The streets were wide, and of unbroken length; and the
fortifications, strengthened at intervals with lofty towers, did not
appear, as in other cities, detached from the buildings which they
inclosed, but by their boldness, and decision of outline, hightened the
unity and conception of the groups of architecture within. The temples
were decorated with paintings, by Protogenes, Zeuxis, and other
celebrated artists of the school of Rhodes; and of one of these
pictures, it is said, that when taken to Rome, it was the object of
universal admiration. The island, after passing through various
fortunes, has, for a long time, been part of the Turkish empire.
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