Hazaad.com’s Blog

While the statue itself was quite impressive. The story of the creation of the statue is even better. When Alexander the great died at a young age he left no clear successor and a civil war of sorts broke out. Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea, sided with the general Ptolemy who was also able to secure much of Egypt. In 305 BCE Demetrius the son of one of Alexander’s generals (Antigonus I Monophthalmus) came to invade Rhodes with 40,000 troops. The city was well walled and the attack became a siege. Demetrius built massive siege towers to allow his troops to get over the walls. There was one that could be brought in by sea, but was lost in a storm before it could be used. There was also the amazingly massive land-based Helepolis (around 135 feet high, 65 wide, and manned by 200 some soldiers). The people of Rhodes flooded the land in front of the walls so that the tower could not move. In 304 BCE Ptolemy sent a relief force of ships and Demetrius’ army retreated leaving many siege weapons outside the walls of Rhodes.

The people of Rhodes then used both the money gained from selling some of the siege weapons and the materials of the siege weapons to build the Colossus of Rhodes near their harbor. Though later accounts have said that the colossus stood astride the entrance to the port it is presently believed that the statue simple stood next to the entrance. The Colossus was of the patron god of Rhodes, Helios. The statue is thought to have been about the size of the statue of liberty.

The statue stood for a short 56 years before it broke at the knees and fell over during an earthquake. Fearful that the god Helios had been offended the people of Rhodes did not rebuild the colossus.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 18th, 2006 at 8:15 am and is filed under Middle Eastern Art, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.