A century ago, the Comte de Caylus, a distinguished French archeologist, found fault with his countrymen for admitting this fiction into the school books[7] 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,[8] the latter adding a lamp to the hand of the statue. A fictitious Greek manuscript, quoted by the mythologist Du Choul,[9] further adorns the Colossus by giving him a sword and lance and by hanging a mirror round his neck.
The Count Choiseul-Gouffier, 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 persons 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,[10] do not yield to this opinion, but endeavour still to place the site of the statue at the entrance to one of the smaller harbours of the island, scarcely forty feet wide. Rottiers goes even 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 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 about 223 years before Christ. “The Rhodians,” says he, “have benefited by the catastrophe which befell them, owing to which, not only the huge Colossus, but innumerable 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 of the town of Rhodes, Polybius mentions the three kings, Ptolemy III. of Egypt, Antigonos Doson of Macedonia, and Seleucus of Syria, father of Antiochus.
The elder Pliny records that the Colossus, after having stood for fifty-six years, was overthrown by an earthquake, and that it took Charès of Lindos, to whom the Rhodians had entrusted its re-construction, twelve years to complete his task.
It is probable that the statue of Minerva, from 50 to 60 feet in height, which was designed and partly executed by Phidias for the Acropolis at Athens, served as a model for Charès, not only for the material, but for the conception of the Colossus and for the site on which it stood.
Minerva was the patroness of Athens as the sun-god Helios was the patron of the island of Rhodes.
About 150 years before Christ a certain Philo-Byzantius wrote a short treatise on the seven wonders of the ancient world.[11] In it he 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, nor of the beacon light. 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 great harbour entrance, according to modern research, was 350 feet wide; it could not therefore possibly reach across this space.