Colossus of Rhodes

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Illustration of the legend of the splay-legged colossus of Rhodes above the harbor entrance (in the Book of Knowledge of the Grolier Society, 1911)

The Colossus of Rhodes was one of more than 30 meters high, monumental bronze - statue of the sun and City of God Helios ( Greek  Ἥλιος ) that about 292 v. After twelve years of construction it was completed and placed in the island's capital Rhodes . The colossal statue fell around 227/226 BC. As a result of an earthquake . It was already one of the seven wonders of the world in ancient times .

prehistory

The great statue of Helios was erected after the happy outcome of the siege of Rhodes (305-304 BC) , which had taken place in the context of the disputes between the successors of Alexander the Great . From a historical point of view, the victory of the Rhodians against the powerful opponent Demetrios I Poliorketes would hardly have happened without the support of the Greek ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy I Soter . The Rhodians themselves saw it differently. They erected several monuments in the city that recorded and celebrated the event for posterity. The most powerful of them was the colossal Helios statue, which was placed in the main sanctuary of the city, the Helios Sanctuary, and was consecrated there.

The Rhodians believed that the sun god Helios, patron god of their city-state, had miraculously saved them from being conquered by Demetrios Poliorketes. It was Helios who instructed the Rhodians to dig a concealed trench between the city wall and the nine-story main siege engine Helepolis ( ἑλέπολις "city destroyer") at night . When the siege engine advanced the next morning, it fell into this ditch and closed a breach that had already been made in the city wall with its tower . Demetrios then gave up the siege of the city of Rhodes and left all his siege equipment to the Rhodians. The Rhodians would have used the proceeds (300 talents of silver, that's about 9 tons) to finance the statue.

The question of casting technology

From the ancient text sources it is clear that the Colossus of Rhodes was made of cast bronze . A height of 70 cubits is reported, that is 30-35 meters (the exact cubit is not known). The construction lasted over twelve years (about 304-292 BC). The sculptor and director of the bronze casting workshop was Chares of Lindos , a pupil of Lysippus of Sikyon . The technology used in the casting workshop has to be reconstructed today. More recent finds in Rhodes make it probable that the figure was cast in large individual pieces near its location.

The apparently extensive tradition of the Philon of Byzantium on the casting technique causes confusion . Philon claims that the figure was cast on top of one another at the location floor by floor. After completing the first floor, it was hidden from the outside under an earth fill and then the second floor was poured onto it and so on. In the interior of the figure, iron scaffolding and stones were used for stabilization and pulled up with it from the start. 500 talents bronze (15 tons) and 300 talents iron (about 9 tons) were used. The construction devoured so much raw material that the copper ore sources known at the time threatened to dry up. The reason for the unusual casting method was that large individual parts could not be transported.

Philon's text is probably the early attempt to reconstruct the casting technique of the giant figure, which was never written down and was therefore lost in antiquity. The author, himself not a craftsman, mixes right with wrong. In ancient times, for example, large castings could very well be transported, as they were lighter than the huge marble parts that were used in temple construction. Casting bronze in tiers is technically possible, but the archaeologically proven technology speaks against its being used in Rhodes. In addition, the Philon's method would have raised a huge mountain. The debris from this mountain must have left clear traces in Rhodes that have not been found in eighty years of archaeological excavations in the city.

The Colossus of Rhodes is often mentioned in ancient literature - often as an example of exaggerated size and megalomania. The following anecdote also belongs in this context: “The Rhodians, who first ordered a medium-sized statue about 18 meters high from Chares and set the price, changed the order and doubled the dimensions. Chares realized too late that he should have asked eight instead of double the price. He went bankrupt on the job, which then drove him to suicide. "

Location

Ancient authors make no indication of the location of the Helios colossus of Rhodes. Maybe this knowledge was too obvious. However, it can be deduced from the historical context, because it was a Christmas gift. The dedicatory inscription is probably preserved in the Anthologia Palatina . The most monumental consecration that the Rhodians ever set up for their god can only have stood in the city-state's most important sanctuary, the Helios sanctuary. Such dedications also have a tradition in the sanctuaries of other Greek city-states.

However, the location of the Helios sanctuary in Rhodes is still unknown. Various suggestions were made: on the St. Nikolaus pier (Wolfram Hoepfner, see below), on the Acropolis (19th century), in place of the medieval Grand Master's Palace on the slope of the Acropolis (meanwhile, already discarded). Ursula Vedder's suggestion is new, according to which the naming of the temple and sanctuary above the stadium terrace of Rhodes as the sanctuary and temple of Apollon Pythios cannot be kept. Above the stadium, in which games were held annually in honor of Helios, is therefore in reality the long-sought Helios sanctuary. Although the site was excavated in 1938 and prepared as an archaeological park, it has not yet been extensively investigated. Proof of localization is pending.

destruction

A strong, today in the year 227/226 BC. An earthquake dated to the 3rd century BC that caused great devastation in the city also brought the Colossus of Rhodes to collapse; one source says the tremor caused his knees to buckle. According to Pliny the Elder , the statue only survived 66 years, making it the shortest-lived of the seven wonders of the world. After this earthquake, Rhodes received financial support from all over Greece. A king, perhaps Ptolemy III. Euergetes , also promised funds to raise the colossus again. However, the Rhodians left the bronze pieces there for fear of a new fall. According to Pliny, an oracle was the reason. In a scholion , the reclining colossus is cited as an explanatory example for the proverb "An evil that lies well should not be moved from its place". Visitors to the sanctuary could see the ruins for about 890 years. According to a description by Pliny the Elder, there were huge hollows in the broken limbs and only very tall men were able to embrace the statue's thumb with their arms.

According to a tradition that apparently goes back to the lost chronicle of Theophilos of Edessa and, with deviations, has come down to Theophanes , Agapios of Hierapolis and Michael Syrus , the Arabs gathered (probably in 654) under Muawiya , the general of the ruling caliph Uthman ibn Affan and Governor of Syria, the metal of the statue when they briefly captured the island. The scrap metal is said to have been shipped to the Orient, where a Jewish dealer from Edessa bought it and, according to the report of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetus, transported it with 980 camels.

The Colossus of Rhodes in Art

The Colossus of Rhodes, fantasy by Maarten van Heemskerck from the 16th century

There is no ancient representation or description of the Colossus of Rhodes. One can only assume that Helios was depicted as a standing, naked young man with long curly hair and a halo. It is very likely that his head was modeled on the coin images of the city-state of Rhodes, which had been made since the late 5th century BC. Were minted on Rhodes.

The image of the splay-legged colossus over the port entrance of Rhodes has been widespread since the Renaissance. It illustrates a legend that arose in the late 14th century in Crusader-ruled Rhodes , presumably under the early humanist Grand Master Jean Fernandez de Heredia . One can assume that it goes back to a learned but incorrect interpretation of an ancient text source. The Hospitallers told the Christian pilgrims who stopped in Rhodes on their journey to the Holy Land that there was once a huge idol in Rhodes that stood with one foot on the end of the St. Nicholas pier and the other one the end of the mill pier. It was so big that ships of any size could enter the harbor under its legs. According to this legend, the Colossus of Rhodes stood with its feet on the ends of the ancient moles and took a step of about 750 m.

The legend came to the West with the Christian pilgrims. In 1554 André Thevet published a picture of the splay-legged harbor guard for the first time in Lyon ( Cosmographie du Levant ). The best known to this day, however, is the drawing of Maarten van Heemskerck ( Colossus Solis , in Octo Mundi Miracula ) engraved by Philipp Galle in 1572 , which was subsequently frequently copied and varied. Van Heemskerck introduced the attribute of the vessel with the flame in the right hand of the colossus into the picture. Doubts about the correctness of the legend arose in the 18th century. The architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach ( draft of historical architecture , Vienna 1721) noticed, for example, that with a statue 70 ells high, the step could not be as far as the wording of the legend suggested. Nevertheless, he too drew a picture in the tradition of van Heemskerck. The scholar Anne-Claude-Philippe, Comte de Caylus found in 1752 that legend and ancient tradition did not match. This did not influence the effect of the legend and its illustrations well into the 19th century.

Almost all souvenirs of the colossus made in Rhodes today go back to the picture of the draftsman P. J. Witdoeck in B. E. A. Rottiers from 1830 ( Descriptions des Monuments de Rhodes ). The Antiquities Administration of Rhodes owns a copy of this book. Rational considerations such as the fact that, for static reasons, the fire pot must be in the central axis of the figure, i.e. above the head, flowed into this representation.

The oldest reconstruction of the Colossus of Rhodes as a quiet standing figure was published in 1939 by A. Gabriel. In modern illustrations of the seven wonders of the world, however, the reconstruction by H. Maryon from 1956 is often used. Recently, Wolfram Hoepfner and Ursula Vedder have been drawing attention to themselves with their investigations into the Colossus of Rhodes. Hoepfner reconstructs the Colossus of Rhodes where the St. Nikolaus Castle is today. This article follows the ideas of Vedder.

Linguistic

Ancient names

The ancient Greek names were

  • ὁ Ἥλιος Ῥόδιος - ho Hélios Rhódios - "the Rhodian Helios "
  • ὁ κολοσσὸς Ῥόδιος - ho kolossòs Rhódios - "the Rhodian colossus"
  • ὁ ἐν Ῥόδῳ κολοσσός - ho en Rhódô kolossós - "the colossus in Rhodes"

The Latin name was Colossus Solis Rhodi or Solis Colossus Rhodi .

Etymology of "colossus"

The words colossus and colossal developed from ancient Greek κολοσσός kolossós via Latin colossus (noun) and colossaeus (adjective). Etymologically, the word comes from a Western Minor Asian language, probably Phrygian , cf. the place name Kolossai ( ancient Greek Κολοσσαί; Latin Colossae ).

The word originally referred to a statue in human form without any reference to size. The term took place around 1000 BC. Chr. Entry into the Doric and retained its meaning. Since the use of the word kolossós for the Helios statue from Rhodes, it got the meaning "giant statue " ( colossal statue ).

Reconstruction plans

As of December 2015, a group of architects planned to rebuild the Colossus of Rhodes at a height of 150 meters. The cost would be 250 million euros, which should come through crowdfunding, donations and some support from the Greek government. As of 2018, nothing like this has happened and the former website of the project no longer exists.

See also

literature

  • Kai Brodersen : The seven wonders of the world. CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40329-8 , pp. 84-91.
  • Peter A. Clayton, Martin J. Price (eds.): The seven wonders of the world. Reclam, Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-379-01701-9 .
  • Wolfram Hoepfner : The Colossus of Rhodes and the buildings of Helios. New research on one of the seven wonders of the world. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-8053-3253-X .
  • Ursula Vedder : The Colossus of Rhodes as a guard over the port entrance. In: The Seven Wonders of the World. Ways of recovery from six centuries. Exhibition Winckelmann-Museum Stendal 2003. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-8053-3290-4 .
  • Ursula Vedder: The Colossus of Rhodes: Archeology, production and reception history of an ancient wonder of the world. Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag, Mainz 2015, ISBN 978-3-945751-17-6 .

Web links

Commons : Colossus of Rhodes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pliny the Elder , Natural History 34, 41 .
  2. ↑ So Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34, 41; Strabon , Geographie 14, 2, 5, C 652 ; 60 cubits: Scholia to Lukian of Samosata , Icaromenippus 12; Hyginus Mythographus , Fabulae 223.
  3. ↑ Philo of Byzantium: The seven wonders of the world . 4, 3-5.
  4. ↑ Sextus Empiricus , Adversus mathematicos 7, 106 f.
  5. ↑ Anthologia Palatina 6, 171; see. Suda , keyword Κολασσαεῖς , Adler number: kappa 1932 , Suda-Online . The poem also emphasizes the mythical descent of the Rhodians from Heracles .
  6. ↑ Strabon, Geographie 14, 2, 5, C 652; the collapse of the colossus is also mentioned by the Greek historian Polybios (5, 88, 1).
  7. ↑ Pliny, Natural History 34, 18.
  8. ↑ Scholien zu Plato , Philebos 15c.
  9. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34, 41.
  10. ↑ See Robert G. Hoyland (Ed.): Theophilus of Edessa's Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (= Translated Texts for Historians . 57). Liverpool 2011, pp. 139-140. Cf. also Konstantin VII. Porphyrogennetos , De Administrando Imperio 21, 65 p. 88 Moravcsik.
  11. ↑ Rhodes reconstruction project will be a colossal gamble for Greece - but it might well pay off (English)

Coordinates: 36 ° 27 ′ 4 ″  N , 28 ° 13 ′ 40 ″  E