Transcript 0:00 · this video is brought to you by 0:01 · squarespace whether it's your profession 0:03 · or just a lifelong passion 0:05 · start your journey to website glory with 0:07 · squarespace check out their amazing 0:08 · all-in-one platform through the link in 0:10 · the description below 0:11 · more on them in a bit 0:19 · the statue of liberty is easily the 0:20 · world's most famous statue lady 0:22 · liberty's visage is so iconic that it 0:24 · serves as short hands for not only new 0:26 · york city but 0:27 · america as a whole but where did the 0:28 · inspiration for this statue come from 0:30 · to find it you have to go back over 2 0:32 · 000 years to a similar statue 0:34 · also in a harbor and of a comparable 0:36 · size nothing like it 0:37 · had ever been seen in the ancient world 0:39 · and people traveled great distances just 0:41 · to see it 0:42 · the colossus of roads only stood for 0:44 · less than a century but the impact it 0:45 · had has continued to be felt even today 0:48 · but what exactly was the colossus of 0:50 · rhodes 0:51 · why was it built and why did it earn a 0:53 · place on the famed 0:55 · seven wonders of the ancient world list 0:57 · well 0:58 · today we're going to find out 1:00 · [Music] 1:05 · our story begins in 323 bc with the 1:08 · death of alexander the great and the 1:10 · city of babylon the macedonian king had 1:11 · conquered a massive empire unlike 1:13 · anything the world had ever seen before 1:15 · but he died before he could secure the 1:17 · position of his heir 1:19 · instead his generals tore his empire 1:21 · apart what followed was a long-running 1:23 · series of conflicts known as the wars of 1:25 · the successors 1:26 · as each of alexander's former lieutenant 1:28 · struggled to 1:29 · carve out a position of power for 1:30 · themselves eventually three major 1:32 · factions emerged 1:33 · egypt controlled by ptolemy the seleucid 1:35 · empire in persia 1:37 · and the antigone dynasty which ruled 1:39 · asia minor caught in the middle of all 1:41 · this term or quite literally was the 1:42 · island city-state of rhodes 1:44 · in greek mythology the island was said 1:46 · to be created by the sun god helios so 1:48 · that he had a place to rule since he 1:50 · missed the meeting where the gods drew 1:52 · lots to divide up the places of the 1:54 · earth 1:54 · it was named after his wife the nymph 1:56 · rhodos the capital city built in 408 bc 1:59 · was also named rhodes 2:00 · by the end of the 4th century bc rhodes 2:02 · was becoming a commercial maritime power 2:04 · it was situated at the conflux of the 2:06 · aegean and mediterranean 2:08 · seas 18 kilometers from the southern 2:10 · shore of asia mine are an ideal position 2:12 · to control the sea trade 2:13 · rhodes was an important waypoint for 2:14 · ships traveling between the cities of 2:16 · greece and those of asia and so 2:18 · roads grew exceptionally wealthy as the 2:20 · successor wars raged around 2:22 · them rhodes steadfastly maintained its 2:24 · own independence 2:25 · and neutrality but they formed a close 2:27 · association with ptolemaic egypt 2:29 · something 2:29 · that irked antagonist ptolemy's sworn 2:32 · enemy antigonus knew that if the 2:34 · powerful rhodian navy allied 2:36 · itself with egypt against him he'd be at 2:38 · a disadvantage he decided 2:39 · roads needed to be dealt with 2:47 · in 305 bc an army of forty thousand 2:49 · commanded by antigonus's son demetrius 2:52 · attacked rhodes attached to the antigone 2:54 · in force were 2:55 · swarms of pirate vessels who hoped to 2:57 · take advantage of the carnage to take 2:59 · plunder for themselves 3:00 · against them the rodians could only 3:02 · muster a force of 7000 but their city 3:04 · had strong fortifications 3:06 · and a well-defended harbour demetrius 3:08 · ravaged the surrounding countryside and 3:10 · put the city of rhodes under siege 3:12 · unable to capture the original harbour 3:14 · he 3:14 · built one of his own to house his fleet 3:17 · of 200 ships along with the large 3:18 · encampment that resembled a city itself 3:21 · though his troops surrounded the walls 3:22 · they were unable to prevent supply ships 3:24 · from entering the roadian harbor to keep 3:25 · the inhabitants from starving 3:27 · demetrius tried to take the city by 3:29 · storm and at one point breached the 3:30 · walls but the troops that 3:31 · made it into the city were all killed 3:33 · and the attack was rebuffed the rodians 3:35 · then quickly repaired the damage to the 3:36 · city walls demetrius now tried 3:38 · engineering his way to victory he 3:40 · ordered the construction of gargantuan 3:42 · siege weapons including a battering ram 3:44 · and catapults 3:45 · the biggest of these was a siege tower 3:46 · known as the halepolis this wooden tower 3:49 · was unlike anything the world had ever 3:50 · seen before standing over 40 meters high 3:52 · and 20 meters wide and weighing 160 tons 3:55 · the structure was covered in iron plates 3:56 · to make it fireproof and bristled with 3:58 · weaponry 3:59 · 16 catapults and all it required a crew 4:01 · of 3 400 men to push it into place 4:04 · surely against such a goliath as the 4:06 · helepolis the city of rhodes 4:08 · didn't stand a chance only it didn't 4:10 · quite work out that way there are 4:12 · differing accounts about what happened 4:14 · when demetrius tried to use the siege 4:15 · tower in battle 4:16 · one story says the defenders damaged 4:18 · enough of the iron plating that the 4:20 · general ordered it removed from the 4:21 · battlefield so that they couldn't set it 4:23 · on fire another account says the rodians 4:24 · flooded the ground the helepolis was to 4:27 · advance upon the night before 4:28 · and the huge siege engine got stuck in 4:30 · the mud and couldn't be moved whatever 4:32 · happened 4:32 · the city still held out a year after the 4:35 · siege began when 4:36 · a relief force sent by ptolemy arrived 4:38 · demetrius outmaneuvered and knowing that 4:40 · the siege was growing ever more 4:41 · unpopular at home 4:43 · was forced to sue for peace his army 4:44 · left and the city of rhodes was saved 4:47 · [Music] 4:52 · when demetrius's army departed it left a 4:54 · lot of equipment behind 4:56 · including the siege engines the rodians 4:58 · deciding there was no point in letting 4:59 · it all go to waste gathered it all up 5:01 · and sold it for scrap they dismantled 5:03 · the abandoned helipolars and melted down 5:05 · its iron plating the total amount of 5:06 · money they received after 5:08 · selling the equipment amounted to 300 5:09 · talents of silver 5:11 · amount worth around 6.4 million dollars 5:13 · in today's money so 5:14 · what do they do with all the money well 5:16 · the rodians wanted to give thanks to 5:17 · their patron god 5:18 · helios who they believed had favored 5:20 · them by sparing their city and even back 5:22 · then people knew the best way to honor 5:24 · someone was to build a statue of them 5:25 · this couldn't just be any ordinary 5:27 · statue though it had to be big 5:29 · huge in fact bigger than any statue the 5:32 · world had ever seen 5:33 · something as big as the helepolis to 5:36 · build their mammoth statue the people of 5:38 · rhodes turns to the best sculptor on the 5:40 · island 5:41 · a man named chares of lindos charis have 5:44 · been mentioned by a man named 5:46 · lisipos the personal sculptor of 5:48 · alexander the great whose crowning 5:49 · achievement was the building of a 22 5:51 · meter high statue of zeus in the city 5:53 · of terrence construction on the statue 5:55 · of helios began in 292 bc on a hilltop 5:58 · overlooking the city and harbor of roads 6:01 · later depictions of the statue being in 6:03 · the harbor or even straddling the 6:05 · way so ships would have to pass between 6:07 · its legs to enter it 6:08 · a fantasy concocted in medieval times 6:11 · the first thing to be built was a 6:12 · 15-meter tall white marble pedestal on 6:15 · which the statue would stand on top of 6:17 · this was constructed an iron framework a 6:19 · skeleton onto which molded bronze plates 6:21 · would be affixed to it to 6:23 · form the statue's skin charles built a 6:25 · massive casting bit to mold the bronze 6:27 · pieces he needed for the statue 6:28 · larger than any pit ever constructed for 6:30 · this purpose before as the statue grew 6:32 · taller stone blocks were placed inside 6:34 · the interior to act as further support 6:36 · for the iron framework it soon became 6:37 · clear that normal scaffolding wasn't 6:39 · going to be enough for the statue not as 6:41 · its height continued to grow 6:43 · it was becoming too difficult to move 6:44 · the bronze pieces into place using the 6:46 · technology of the time period 6:48 · so shars decided to build a massive 6:50 · earthen ramp around the statue 6:52 · to allow workers to access it this also 6:54 · had the effect of obscuring the statue 6:56 · from public view 6:57 · no one but the designer was going to 6:59 · know what it looked like until it was 7:01 · finished 7:01 · finally after 12 years of work the 7:02 · earthen mound was removed and the statue 7:04 · was finished 7:05 · the finished statue stood at 70 cubits 7:07 · high or 32 meters 7:09 · together with the pedestal it towered 7:10 · over the city and harbour of roads from 7:12 · its hilltop 7:13 · to describe it the greeks had to invent 7:14 · a new word 7:16 · colossus which literally means giant 7:18 · statue 7:19 · so the finnish structure became known as 7:21 · the colossus of rhodes 7:23 · [ad text redacted] 8:57 · bizarrely enough though there are plenty 8:59 · of contemporary accounts of how large 9:01 · the colossus was how it was built and 9:03 · how amazed people were by it there are 9:05 · no surviving accounts depicting what the 9:07 · statue actually looked like so 9:09 · historians have no idea many later 9:12 · illustrators showed helios holding a 9:13 · torch loft like the statue of liberty 9:15 · but there's no evidence that this is the 9:17 · case 9:17 · a sculpture in a nearby temple has a 9:19 · depiction of helios shielding his eyes 9:20 · with one hand like a person would when 9:22 · shielding their eyes from the sun 9:24 · and it's possible that this is how 9:25 · colossus looked what is known 9:27 · is that in the years after it was built 9:28 · people came from all over the ancient 9:30 · world to view the colossus 9:31 · it was an early form of tourism that 9:33 · allowed learned men or at least men with 9:35 · sufficient means to travel around 9:36 · viewing the great sites known to them at 9:38 · the time these sites became known 9:39 · as wonders and as early as the second 9:41 · century bc chroniclers were writing 9:43 · about what wonders they had seen and 9:45 · were encouraging other people to see you 9:47 · might call the creation of the concept 9:48 · of the seven wonders of the world as 9:50 · an early attempt at a tourist guidebook 9:52 · the colossus built to celebrate the city 9:54 · of rhodes soon came to 9:56 · define the place's existence people from 9:58 · rhodes became known 9:59 · as coliseums and tourist revenue from 10:02 · people coming to view it only propelled 10:03 · the city's growth further rhodes became 10:05 · known as a cultural as well as a 10:07 · commercial center becoming home to 10:08 · famous centers of learning in the arts 10:10 · but unfortunately for rhodes mother 10:12 · nature ensured that the good times 10:14 · wouldn't last forever 10:21 · in 226 bc 54 years after the colossus 10:25 · had been built 10:25 · a massive earthquake rocked roads the 10:27 · island sits on a boundary between two 10:29 · tectonic plates that are pushing against 10:31 · each other 10:32 · making the area prone to large 10:33 · earthquakes the quake of 226 bc caused 10:36 · large amounts of destruction 10:38 · destroying many buildings earthquake 10:40 · proof construction was an unknown 10:41 · concept at the time people 10:42 · simply didn't understand the forces at 10:44 · work and the colossus 10:46 · as tall as it was just didn't stand a 10:48 · chance the statue snapped off at the 10:50 · knees and fell over breaking into pieces 10:51 · when it hit the ground 10:52 · contemporary accounts give no figure for 10:54 · the number of people killed 10:55 · but we can infer that they were high 10:58 · office of aid came in from all over the 10:59 · mediterranean to help the rodians 11:01 · rebuild their city this included their 11:03 · famed colossus pharaoh ptolemy iii of 11:05 · egypt offered to help 11:06 · finance its reconstruction at the time 11:07 · however natural disasters were viewed as 11:09 · a sign of god's disfavor and 11:11 · the people of rhodes worried that they'd 11:12 · displeased helios in some way 11:14 · and he had sent the earthquake to smite 11:16 · them they constructed the oracle at 11:18 · delphi who cautioned them against 11:19 · rebuilding the statue the rodians with a 11:21 · heavy heart agreed and 11:23 · no attempt was made to rebuild the 11:24 · colossus neither were the remains of the 11:26 · statue removed from where they fell they 11:28 · were just 11:28 · left there still so large and imposing 11:31 · that people continued to visit them for 11:32 · another 800 years 11:34 · one writer described how visitors would 11:35 · struggle to wrap their arms around the 11:37 · thumb of the fallen statue and 11:39 · remarking on how the fingers were longer 11:41 · than most statues were tall in 653 a.d 11:44 · the island of rhodes was conquered by 11:45 · the forces 11:46 · of the umayyad caliphate and the statue 11:48 · was melted down and 11:49 · sold as part of the spoils of war the 11:51 · bronze was supposedly hauled away 11:53 · on over 900 camels 11:57 · [Music] 12:01 · no trace of the colossus remains today 12:03 · outside of records and contemporary 12:04 · accounts leaving experts to struggle 12:06 · with a question of 12:07 · where the statue was located and what it 12:08 · looked like a lot of artistic liberty 12:10 · was taken in the following centuries as 12:12 · stated before a common misconception was 12:13 · that the colossus straddled the entrance 12:15 · of 12:15 · rhodes's harbor and held a torch aloft 12:18 · in some accounts the torch is even lit 12:20 · meaning the colossus also acted as a 12:21 · lighthouse these depictions are almost 12:23 · certainly fictional as historians have 12:25 · concluded that there was no way a statue 12:27 · could have been built like that using 12:28 · the techniques of the time period 12:30 · without 12:30 · collapsing under its own weight further 12:32 · proof that the statue wasn't located in 12:34 · or near the harbour is the fact that the 12:35 · remains of the statue were visible for 12:37 · hundreds of years after it fell over 12:39 · which would have been impossible had the 12:40 · statue fallen into the water 12:42 · from which it would have been impossible 12:43 · for the rodians to retrieve regardless 12:45 · the fictional positioning of the 12:47 · colossus became so influential that it 12:49 · is the basis 12:49 · upon which the statue of liberty was 12:51 · built on a stone pedestal 12:53 · in the harbor of a major maritime city 12:55 · holding a torture loft 12:56 · emma lazarus famous poem about the 12:58 · statue of liberty describes it 13:00 · as the new colossus rhodes wasn't able 13:02 · to maintain its independence forever 13:03 · any mores and they could keep their 13:05 · colossus afloat the city fell to the 13:07 · romans 13:07 · along with all of the successor kingdoms 13:09 · and much of the known world after the 13:11 · roman empire split into 13:13 · rhodes was ruled by the eastern empire 13:15 · renamed the byzantine empire for a 13:17 · thousand years 13:18 · except for brief periods when the island 13:20 · was occupied by invading forces in 1306 13:22 · the knights hospital captured roads and 13:24 · ruled it for over 200 years until they 13:26 · were forced out by the ottoman empire in 13:27 · 1522 eventually 13:29 · moving their base of operations to the 13:30 · island of malta italy seized control of 13:32 · the island during the italo-turkish war 13:34 · of 1912 and the germans occupied the 13:36 · island during world war ii 13:37 · capturing it from the italian garrison 13:39 · who wanted to surrender it to the 13:40 · british 13:41 · after the war the island was given to 13:42 · greece who have governed it ever since 13:44 · today about a hundred thousand people 13:45 · live on roads not counting the tourists 13:47 · and 13:48 · the island is one of europe's most 13:49 · popular vacation spots they come to see 13:51 · the beaches and 13:52 · the medieval and ancient architecture as 13:54 · well as to partake in the many mineral 13:56 · springs on the island that have 13:58 · purported healing properties to boost 14:00 · tourism many investors have proposed 14:01 · building a new colossus of roads on the 14:03 · site of the original 14:04 · or even in its fictional location within 14:06 · the harbour but 14:07 · none of these plans has ever gotten off 14:09 · the ground meaning that the colossus 14:10 · still exists only 14:12 · within our imaginations but the very 14:14 · fact that the colossus of roads existed 14:16 · at all continues to fascinate us it was 14:18 · a remarkable feat of engineering a 14:19 · statue as large as the statue of liberty 14:21 · being built entirely by hand without the 14:23 · aid 14:24 · of any of the powered tools and devices 14:26 · so essential 14:27 · in construction work today it was so big 14:29 · for its time period that language itself 14:31 · needed to be changed to accommodate it 14:33 · something that still impacts us today 14:35 · after all from the word colossus 14:37 · came the word colossal which can be used 14:39 · to describe anything extremely large 14:41 · it's also a term in sculpture referring 14:43 · to a statue that is at least twice 14:45 · life-size which 14:46 · definitely applied to the colossus its 14:49 · design 14:49 · inspired countless other statues and 14:51 · monuments over the following centuries 14:53 · the most famous of which sits in new 14:55 · york harbor and though there was always 14:57 · some debate among 14:58 · contemporary greek writers about what 14:59 · exactly constituted the seven wonders of 15:01 · the world 15:02 · the present list wasn't established 15:03 · until the renaissance the colossus of 15:05 · rhodes 15:06 · was included from the very beginning 15:07 · when these lists were first being 15:09 · created 15:09 · and what more could be said about it 15:11 · than that being considered 15:13 · a wonder of the world truly a colossal 15:16 · compliment 15:17 · so i really hope you enjoyed this video 15:19 · thanks again to squarespace who 15:20 · sponsored it link to them below 15:22 · and thank you for watching 15:31 · [Music] 15:31 · you
Doesn’t look so ‘colossus’ to me.....................
Summarized by chatgpt
- Video sponsored by Squarespace.
- The Statue of Liberty is iconic and symbolic.
- The Colossus of Rhodes, an ancient statue, served a similar purpose.
- Colossus of Rhodes built over 2,000 years ago.
- Wars of the Successors followed Alexander the Great’s death.
- Rhodes, a maritime power, had strategic importance.
- Rhodes associated with Ptolemaic Egypt, irked Antigonus.
- Antigonus attacked Rhodes with a massive army in 305 BC.
- Rhodes defended itself against the siege.
- Siege engines, including the Helopolis, were used.
- Siege tower Helopolis couldn’t conquer Rhodes.
- Demetrius’ army left, Rhodes sold the siege equipment.
- The money received funded a statue of Helios.
- The sculptor Chares of Lindos built the statue.
- Construction began in 292 BC, took 12 years.
- The statue was a colossal bronze figure.
- Known as the Colossus of Rhodes, it stood 32 meters high.
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