Wonders _
Colossus of Rhodes
Destruction
The statue stood for only 56 years until Rhodes was hit by an earthquake in 224 BC. The statue snapped at the knees and fell over onto the land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue, but an oracle made the Rhodians afraid that they offended Helios, and they declined to rebuild it. The remains lay on the ground for over 800 years, and even broken, they were so impressive that many travelled to see them.
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. 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. The purchaser had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home. Pieces continued to turn up for sale for years, after being found on the caravan route.
The Myth
The harbour-straddling Colossus was a figment of later imaginations. Many older illustrations (above) show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbour mouth with ships passing under it: "Š the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land Š" (from "The New Colossus", the poem found at the base of the Statue of Liberty). Shakespeare's Cassius in Julius Caesar (I,ii,13638) says of Caesar:
Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves
Colossus of Rhodes
Destruction
The statue stood for only 56 years until Rhodes was hit by an earthquake in 224 BC. The statue snapped at the knees and fell over onto the land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue, but an oracle made the Rhodians afraid that they offended Helios, and they declined to rebuild it. The remains lay on the ground for over 800 years, and even broken, they were so impressive that many travelled to see them.
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. 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. The purchaser had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home. Pieces continued to turn up for sale for years, after being found on the caravan route.
The Myth
The harbour-straddling Colossus was a figment of later imaginations. Many older illustrations (above) show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbour mouth with ships passing under it: "Š the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land Š" (from "The New Colossus", the poem found at the base of the Statue of Liberty). Shakespeare's Cassius in Julius Caesar (I,ii,13638) says of Caesar:
Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves