Colossus or Colossos, Rhodes

Colossus or Colossos (Lat. and Gr. a gigantic statue)

The Colossus of Rhodes, completed probably about 280 B. C., was a representation of the sun-god, Helios, and commemorated the successful defense of Rhodes against Demetrius Poliorcetes in 304 B. C. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the World; it stood 105 feet high, and is said to have been made from the warlike engines abandoned by Demetrius by the Rhodian Sculptor Chares, a pupil of Lysippus. The story that it was built striding across the harbor and that ships could piss in full sail between its legs, rose in the 16th century. There is nothing to support it; neither Strabo nor Pliny makes mention of it, though both describe the statue minutely.