COLOSSUS. The Colossus of Rhodes was a brazen Statue of such a prodigious height, that Ships with full Sails might pass between its Legs. It was one of the seven wonders of the World1, was seventy Cubits, or an hundred and five Feet high. Chares, disciple to the famous Lysippus, cast it in a mould. There were few People who could encompass the Thumb of it: It was consecrated to Apollo or the Sun. King Demetrius, after he had besieged the City of Rhodes for one whole year, without being able to get Possession of it, concluded a Peace with the Inhabitants, and upon his return presented them with all the warlike Machines made use of in the Siege. These they sold some time after for three hundred talents, which with other sums added to them, they imployed in making this Colossus. Chares was twelve years at work upon it. It was begun in the year of the World 3700, and overthrown by an Earth-quake sixty years after it had been erected.
The Rhodians pretending that they design’d to set up the Colossus again, made gatherings over all the States of Greece, and begg’d of all the Kings2 of Egypt, Macedonia, Syria, Pontus and Bithynia; they so far aggravated their loss, that the Collection which was raised for them, amounted to five times as much as their real damage. Instead of imploying these Sums in restoring their Colossus, they gave out, that the Oracle forbad it absolutely, and so kept the Money for themselves. The Colossus continued thus broken down as it was for 894 years, at the end whereof, in the year of Jesus Christ 672, Moravias, sixth Caliph of the Sarracens, having taken Rhodes, sold the Brass of the Colossus to a Jewish Merchant, who had as much of it as loaded nine hundred Camels: Which reckoning eight Quintals to a Load, amounted to 7200 Quintals, or 720000 Pounds. See Rhodes.
The Rhodians generally represented on one side of their Medals the head of Apollo, or the Sun, and on the other a Rose, with this Legend, POΔΙΩΝ, belonging to the Rhodians. It has been affirmed, that the Jews gave some of these pieces to Judas, as the reward of his treachery. See Rhodium and Rhodes.
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