“seventy cubits in height, the work of Chares of Lindus.”
It now lies on the ground, having been thrown down by an earthquake, and is broken off at the knees. An oracle prohibited its being raised again. This is the most remarkable of the votive offerings, and it is allowed to be one of the seven wonders of the world.[127] There were also the pictures by Protogenes,[128] the Ialysus, and the Satyr, who was represented standing by a pillar. On the top of the pillar was a partridge. The bird strongly attracted, as was natural, the gaping admiration of the people, when the picture was first hung up in public, and they were so much delighted, that the Satyr, although executed with great skill, was not noticed. The partridge-breeders were still more struck with the picture of the bird. They brought tame partridges, which, when placed opposite to the picture, made their call, and drew together crowds of people. When Protogenes observed that the principal had become the subordinate part of his work, he obtained permission of the curators of the temple to efface the bird, which he did.
The Rhodians, although their form of government is not democratic, are attentive to the welfare of the people, and endeavour to maintain the multitude of poor. The people receive allowances of corn, and the rich support the needy, according to an ancient usage. There are also public offices in the state, the object of which is to procure and distribute provisions,[129] so that the poor may obtain subsistence, and the city not suffer for want of persons to serve her, especially in manning her fleets.
Some of the dockyards are kept private, and the multitude are prohibited from seeing them. If any person should be found inspecting, or to have entered them, he would be punished with death. As at Massalia and Cyzicus,[130] so here particularly, everything relating to architects, the manufacture of engines, stores of arms, and of other materials, is administered with peculiar care, much more so than in other places.
6. Like the people of Halicarnassus,[131] Cnidus, and Cos, the Rhodians are of Doric origin. Some of the Dorians, who founded Megara after the death of Codrus, remained there; others associated themselves with the colony which went to Crete under the conduct of Althæmenes the Argive; the rest were distributed at Rhodus, and among the cities just mentioned.
But these migrations are more recent than the events related by Homer. For Cnidus and Halicarnassus were not then in existence. Rhodes and Cos existed, but were inhabited by Heracleidæ. Tlepolemus, when he attained manhood,
“slew the maternal uncle of his father, the aged Licymnius. He immediately built ships, and, collecting a large body of people, fled away with them:”[132]
and adds afterwards—
“after many sufferings on the voyage, he came to Rhodes; they settled there according to their tribes, in three bodies:”
and mentions by name the cities then existing[133]—