COLOSSUS, in antiquity, a term applied generally to statues of great size, and in particular to the bronze statue of Helios, in Rhodes, which for its size came to be reckoned among the wonders of the world. It was made from the spoils left by Demetrius Poliorcetes when he raised the prolonged siege of Rhodes. The sculptor was Chares, a native of Lindus, and of the school of Lysippus, under whose influence the art of sculpture was led to the production of colossal figures by preference. The work occupied him twelve years, it is said, and the finished statue stood 70 cubits high. It stood near the harbour (e ’ τrt λi∕c∈vι), but at what point is not certain. When, and from what grounds, the belief arose that it had stood across the entrance to the harbour, with a beacon light in its hand and ships passing between its legs, is not known, but the belief was current as early as the 16th century. Μ. Benndorf has recently endeavoured to trace it to a mistaken reading of a Greek epigram on the Colossus, and his conjecture seems probable (Mittheil ungen des deutschen Instituts in Athen, part 1, p. 45). The statue was thrown down by an earthquake about the year 224 b.c., that is about 56 years after its erection. Then, after lying broken for nearly 1000 years, it is said, the pieces were bought by a Jew, and probably reconverted into instruments of war.