Volume 2 — From The St. James Magazine. THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.

In the elementary works for the instruction of young people we find every day frequent mention of the Colossus of Rhodes. The statue is always represented with gigantic limbs, each leg resting on the enormous rocks which face both sides of the entrance to the principal port of the island of Rhodes, and ships in full sail pass easily, it is said, between its legs; for Pliny the ancient tells us that its height was seventy cubits.

This colossus was reckoned among the seven wonders of the world, the six others being, as is well known, the suspended gardens of Babylon, devised by Nitocris, wife of Nebuchadnezzar; the pyramids of Egypt; the statue of Jupiter Olympicus; the mausoleum of Halicarnassus; the temple of Diana at Ephesus; and the pharos of Alexandria, erected in the year of Rome 470, and completely destroyed by an earthquake A.D. 1303.

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Nowhere has any authority been found for the assertion that the Colossus of Rhodes spanned the entrance to the island, and admitted the passage of vessels in fall sail between its wide-stretched limbs. No old drawing even of that epoch exists, when the statue was yet supposed to be standing; several modern engravings may be seen, but they are mere works of the imagination, executed to gratify the curiosity of amateur antiquarians, or to feed the naive credulity of the ignorant.

A century ago, the Comte de Cayius, a distinguished French archaeologist, found fault with his countrymen for admitting this fiction into the schoolbooks [Footnote 76] for young people; but he sought in vain to trace its origin.

Vigenère, in his "Tableaux de Philostrate," is supposed to have been the first who ventured to make an imaginary drawing of the colossus. He was followed by Bergier and Chevreau, [Footnote 77] the latter adding a lamp to the hand of the statue.

The greater number of French dictionaries, Rollin, in his "Ancient History," and even some encyclopaedic dictionaries, have adopted the fiction of their predecessors.

A fictitious Greek manuscript, quoted by the mythologist Dachoul, [Footnote 78] further adorns the colossus by giving him a sword and lance, and by hanging a mirror round his neck.

The Comte Ghoisel-Grouffier, in his picturesque "Journey through Greece," published about the year 1780, declares the colossus with the outstretched legs to be fabulous. He says: "This fable has for years enjoyed the privilege so readily accorded to error. It is commonly received, and discarded only by the few who have made ancient history their study. Most people have accepted, without investigation, an assertion which is unsupported by any authority from ancient authors." Nevertheless, the Belgian, Colonel Rottiers, and the English geologist, Hamilton, [Footnote 79] do not yield to this respectable authority, but endeavor to place the site of the statue at the entrance to one of the smaller harbors of the island, scarcely forty feet wide. Rottier goes still further, and gives a superb engraving of the colossus under the form of an Apollo, the bow and quiver on his shoulders, his forehead encircled by rays of light, and holding a beacon flame above his head.

Polybius is the first among the ancient writers who mentions the Colossus of Rhodes, in enumerating the donations received by the inhabitants of the island after the fearful earthquake they experienced in 222 or 224 b.c. We quote the passage: "The Rhodians have benefited by the catastrophe which befel them, owing to which not only the huge colossus, but also a number of houses and a portion of the surrounding walls, were demolished." Then follows a list of the rich gifts they received from all parts. Among the benefactors Polybius mentions the three kings, Ptolemy III. of Egypt, Antigone Doson, of Macedonia, and Seleucus, of Syria, father of Antiochus. The ancient Pliny records that the colossus, after having stood for sixty-six years, was overthrown by an earthquake, and that it took the artist Charès de Lindos, to whom the Rhodians had intrusted its construction, twelve years to complete his task.

The tendency in art to produce grand effects by colossal works became perceptible twenty-five year's before Phidias; for we find that 463 years before Christ the inhabitants of Syracuse caused a huge statue to be erected to Jupiter Eleutherius, after the death of the tyrant Thrasybulus. This tendency was an indication of the decline of art, traceable during and after the period of Alexander the Great.

But to return to the colossus. One Philo-Byzantius wrote a short treatise on the seven wonders of the ancient world, about 150 years B.C. [Footnote 80] In it he {546} gives an explanation of the construction of the colossus, but nowhere speaks of the extended legs, under which vessels in full sail entered the port. On the contrary, he mentions one sole pedestal, which was of white marble. Moreover, the statue was said to be 105 feet in height, and the harbor entrance, according to modern researches, was 350 feet wide; it could not, therefore, possibly reach across this space. Lastly, if the statue had stood at the entrance of the port, the earthquake must have overthrown it into the sea; whereas Strabo and Pliny tell us that its fragments remained for a considerable time imbedded in the earth, and attracted much attention by their wonderful size and dimensions.

Now this is the real truth concerning the colossus:

Toward the year 305 B.C., Demetrius Poliorcetes laid siege to Rhodes, and the inhabitants defended themselves with so much bravery that, after a whole year of struggle and endurance, they forced the enemy to retire from the island. The Rhodians, by whom the sun-god (Helios) was worshipped as their patron (having emerged from the waves of the AEgean Sea), inspired by sentiments of devotion, and excited by fervent gratitude for so signal a proof of the divine favor, commanded Charès de Lindos to erect a colossal statue to the honor of their deity. An inscription explained that the expenses of its construction were defrayed out of the sale of the materials of war left by Demetrius on his retreat from the island of Rhodes. This statue was erected on an open space of ground near the great harbor, and near the spot where the pacha's seraglio now actually stands; and its fragments for many years after its destruction were seen and admired by travellers. This explanation is still further supported by the fact, that a chapel built on this ground in the time of the Knights of Rhodes is named Fanum Sancti Joannis Colossensis.

We have seen that Strabo, who wrote and travelled during the reigns of the first two Roman emperors, was the earliest author after Polybius who mentioned the fall of the Colossus of Rhodes, and that very concisely. Pliny enters into somewhat fuller details, and speaks of the dimensions of the mutilated limbs. "Even while prostrate," says he, "this statue excited the greatest admiration. Few men could span one of its thumbs with his arms; and each of its fingers was as large as an ordinary full-sized statue. Its broken limbs appeared to strangers like caverns, in the interior of which enormous blocks of stone were seen."

From this time we find no further mention whatever of these fragments; but it is curious that toward the end of the second century several writers speak of a colossal statue at Rhodes as still existing. It is possible that one was again constructed, but of smaller dimensions. Indeed, Leo Allazzi tells us that the Colossus of Rhodes was reconstructed and completed under the Emperor Vespasian; but later Greek authors give us nothing in support of this opinion.

A long time after the fall 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; and then mention is once more made of a colossus in metal. "This last memorial of a glorious past was not respected by the conqueror," says the Byzantine history. "The general took down the colossus which stood erect on the island, and transported the metal into Syria, and sold it to a Jew, who loaded 980 camels with the materials of his purchase."

We should refer any who may be curious for further details on the Colossus of Rhodes to a remarkable work on the subject by Carl Ferdinand Lüders, in which the fiction of the gigantic outstretched limbs is completely disposed of; but with such an array of learned accessories, more germanico, that few will perhaps read it throughout.

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