The first time I saw a picture of the Colossus of Rhodes I was hooked. I loved the idea of sailing between a man’s legs. It whetted my appetite for monumental sculpture, and perhaps that’s what finally sparked my obsession.
But alas. The early pix, like so many other things in life, were misrepresentations. Turns out that the 110 ft. high Helios stood on its own pedestal next to the harbor, partially clothed and shielding its eyes from the sun. It took 12 years to build it, and it lasted less than my own lifetime. After 56 years, it crashed to the ground in an earthquake, leveled from the knees down. The pieces lay around for over five centuries after that, even though Egypt’s Pharo offered to rebuilt it. Some Oracle danced in and nixed that idea, since Helios himself had obviously crushed it in the first place… Then the Arabs came along and defeated the Rhodesians and sold the scrap to some Syrian trader who packed it out on 900 camels.
From what I can gather, it’s NOT true that Chares, the sculptor, committed suicide because of mistakes or bankruptcy. And it may only be partially true that there was a bronze shortage during the construction years. And who knows if it’s only apocryphal that the young John Wilkes Booth once asked, “Can you imagine how famous a man might be who could pull down the Colossus of Rhodes?”  (Paintings from entrenet.com/dgrose (left) and gkindia.com/architecture (above)
10:50:29 AM 
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