Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1880 — The Colossus of Rhodes. [ARTICLE]

T he Colossus of Rhodes.

■ > ■ itoitai In the days of its prosperity, the capital Of the island of Ebodea—“the City of the ofT6 been adorned wlftt atataes and upwards of 100 colossal figures; of the lattar, one wss distinguished as the “the Colorsus of Rhodes,” which was one of the Seven Wooden of the. World. Ik was erected with the spoil which Demetrius left behind bim when he raised the aeige which he had so long carried on against the city, and the statue was consecrated to tbe Sun, the tutelar deity of Rhodes. It was, according to Pliny, tne work of Chares of Lindas, a pupil of Lyatpotta Its height was twenty cubits (About 105 foot,) the cost of its erection ataoqnfod to 300 talents (about £7O,O<X)), aad the time consumed in its construction was twelve years. Fiftysix yean after its completion (224 e. c n ) this stupendous sfatue was thrown down by an earthquake; and in Pliny’s time, it was still lying on the ground, s wonder to behold. Few persons, he says, could embrace the thumbs, and the fingers were Imager than the bodies of most statues; through the fractures were seen huge cavities, into which Immense stones had been placed to balance it while standing. It is asserted to have spanned the entrance to the harbor of the island, and to have admitted the passage of vessels in frill sail between its wide stretched legs; and, although no old representation of the statue exists, the historian Kollin, several French dictionaries, and encyclopedists have adopted the above description of the wonder. Vignere is supposed to have been the first who ventured to make an imaginary drawing of the Colossus. Chevreau added a lamp to the right band of the statne. Du Cboul further adorned the Colossus by giving him a sword and lance, and by hanging a mirror round his neck, “in which,” it is added, “ahi|>s might be discovered as for off as tbe coast of Egypt” The Count Uonffier, about the year 1780, however, declared the Colossos with the outstretched legs to be fabulous, as did tbe Belgian Colonel Rottiers, and onr geologist Hamilton ; bnt they placed the statue at the entrance to one of the small harbors of Rhodes scarcely forty feet wide. “Rottiers,” says Delepterre, in bis “Historical Difficulties,” puWished in 1868, “goes even farther, and gives a superb engraving of the Colossus, under the form oi on Apollo, the bow and quiver upon his shoulders, nia forehead encircled by rays of light, and a beacon-flame over his head.” The statue, according to Delepierre, was erected on an open space of ground near the great harbor, and close to the spot, where the pdcha’s seraglio now stands. This explanation is still frirtber supported by the feet that a chapel built on the ground, in thc time of the Templars, is named Funum Sancti Joannit ColoMensii).

Strabo, who wrote and traveled during the reigns of the first two Roman emperors, is, after Polybius, the earliest author who mentions the fail of the Colossus. Pliny enters into fuller details. Towards the end of the second century after Christ, some writers speak of a colossal statue at Rhodes as still existing, and Delepierre thinks it possible that “one was constructed, bnt of smaller dimensions. Indeed. L«s Allazzi tells ns that the Colossus of Rhodes was reconstructed under the Emperor VespaaiAn.” And, a long time after the fell of the Roman empire, the island of Rhodes was conquered by the general-in-chief of the Caliph Othman, in the seventh century of the Christian era, when, we are told in Byxatine history, that “the general took down the Coloesns which stood erect on the island, transported tbe metal into Syria, and sold it to a Jew, who loaded 980 camels with the materials of his purchase,” which statement disposes of the story that after the overthrow es the Colossus, Greece and Egypt offered to contribute large sums to restore the figure ; but tbe Rhodians declined, alleging that they were forbidden by an oracle to do so. We perceive that Delepierre is inclined to attribute the exaggerated stories of the Colossus to tbe time of the. Crusades, when the inhabitants of Rhodes made this boast to the new comers of their past grandeurs.