Seven Wonders of the Ancient World 6
The Colossus of Rhodes
Below image is AI generated
The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and honestly, it was a massive undertaking — taller and more ambitious than anything else from the Hellenistic period. It was actually the last of the wonders to be finished.
Get s v’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
People built it to thank the gods after fighting off an invasion, so you can imagine how much it meant to them. If you’ve seen the Statue of Liberty, you can picture it — there’s definitely a resemblance. But the Colossus didn’t last long. An earthquake brought it down in less than sixty years. Even now, no one’s entirely sure where it really stood or what happened to its remains.
Rhodes itself is a small Greek island, and from way back, it’s been right in the middle of things — a crossroads between the Aegean and the Mediterranean. It played a big role in trade and economics in the ancient world.
The main city, also called Rhodes, sprang up in 408 BC. City planners picked the spot so they could use the island’s best harbor, right on the north coast. Over the years, the island changed hands quite a bit: Mausolus of Halicarnassus took over in 357 BC, then it fell to the Persians in 340 BC, and later Alexander the Great captured it in 332 BC.
It took twelve years to build the statue, from around 294 to 282 BCE. An earthquake hit Rhodes and brought the Colossus down in 225 or 226 BCE. After that, the ruins just sat there — nobody bothered to rebuild it. Then, in 654 CE, Arabian forces raided the island. They broke up the statue and sold the bronze for scrap. People say the chunks of metal filled over 900 camels.
