the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land.
![when was the colossus of rhodes built when was the colossus of rhodes built](https://www.topmagazine.cz/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/colos.jpg)
Many older illustrations ( above) show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbour mouth with ships passing under it –. Pieces continued to turn up for sale for years, after being found on the caravan route. The purchaser had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home. In AD 654 an Arab force under Muawiyah I captured Rhodes and, according to the chronicler Theophanes, the remains were sold to a travelling salesman from Edessa. 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 remains lay on the ground for over 800 years, and even broken they were so impressive that many travelled to see them. 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. The statue snapped at the knees, and fell over onto the land. The statue stood for only 56 years until Rhodes was hit by an earthquake in 226 BC. The statue itself was over 34 meters (110 feet) tall.Ĭonstruction completed in 282 BC after 12 years. Upper portions were built with the use of a large earthen ramp. Much of the material was melted down from the various weapons Demetrius's army left behind, and the abandoned second siege tower was used for scaffolding around the lower levels. Iron beams were driven into the stone towers, and bronze plates attached to the bars formed the skinning. Construction and fateĪncient accounts (which differ to some degree) describe the structure as being built around several stone columns (or towers of blocks) on the interior of the structure, sitting on a 50-foot-high white marble pedestal near the harbour entrance (others claim on a breakwater in the harbour). The Colossus of Rhodes, imagined in a 16th-century engraving by Martin Heemskerck, part of his series of the Seven Wonders of the World. His teacher, the famed sculptor Lysippus, had constructed a 60-foot high statue of Zeus. Construction was left to the direction of Chares, a native of Rhodes, who had been involved with large scale statues before.
![when was the colossus of rhodes built when was the colossus of rhodes built](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yoQtijFl4dA/maxresdefault.jpg)
To celebrate their victory the Rhodians decided to build a giant statue of their patron god Helios. Despite his failure at Rhodes, Demetrius earned the nickname Poliorcetes, "besieger of cities" by his successes elsewhere. In 304 BC a force of ships sent by Ptolemy arrived, and Demetrius's army left in a hurry, leaving most of their equipment.
![when was the colossus of rhodes built when was the colossus of rhodes built](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ewFQNcEMMqk/VkX9Vi3jsoI/AAAAAAAAA0k/CNKKR5JYziM/s1600/colossus.jpg)
He tried again with an even larger land-based tower, but the Rhodian defenders stopped this by flooding the land in front of the walls so the tower could not move. The first was mounted on six ships, and these blew over in a storm before they could be used. However, the city was well defended, and Demetrius had to start construction of a number of massive siege towers in order to gain access to the walls. In 305 BC he had his son Demetrius (now a famous general on his own) invade Rhodes with an army of 40,000. Infighting broke out between his generals, the " Diadochi", with three of them eventually dividing up much of his empire in the Mediterranean area.ĭuring the fighting Rhodes had sided with Ptolemy, and when Ptolemy eventually took control of Egypt, they formed an alliance which controlled much of the trade in the eastern Mediterranean.Īnother of Alexander's generals, Antigonus, was upset by this turn of events. Alexander the Great died at an early age in 323 BC without having had time to put into place any plans for his succession.