Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-12-18
SOMETHING ABOUT COLOssI.
Dimensions of the Great Statues Of An
cient Times.

Dimensions of the Great Statues of An
cient Times.
Colossi. of which the Bartholdi statue is
now the most important in the world, were
more common on the globe before the birth
of Christ than to-day. The ancient and
famous maritime countries about the Medi-
terranean Sea literally teemed with them.
The Colossus of Rhodes, erected by Charles
of Indus, in honor Of the sun, is one of
the best known to ancient writers, and was
one of the seven wonders of the world. 1t
was of brass, cast in separate pieces, and
was twelve years in process of erection, be-
ing completed $50 B. c. 1t was a statue of
Apollo, and is variously estimated to have
been ninety feet, ninety cubits and even l05
cubits in hight. Its weight was 720, 800
pounds Standing as it did with leg ex-
| tending on each side of the harbor, vessels
| under full sail could enter between them.
A fight of winding stairs led to the top.
| The cost was three hundred talents or very
| nearly a half million of dollars. Sixty
years later it was thrown down by an earth
| quake, where it lay until A. ID. 653, when
| the Saracens, the captors of Rhodes,
sold it to a Jew, who transported 1t
7 to Alexandra, on the backs of 900 camels,
| Rhodes, which now has a population OF
only ten thousand, in the hight of its pros
perity had over three thousand statues, OF
which one hundred were colossi.
The Bartholdi statue is $50 feet high and
weighs go tons. The statue is composed
| of pa pieces of bronze.
| Bavaria, the great female statue at
Munich, personificating that country, until
| the Bartholdi statue, was said to be next in
size to the Colossus of Rhodes. 1t is 65
feet high, with pedestal thirty feet, and is
casa from the bronze of Turkish and Nor
| wegian cannon. The figure is partly
| draped, holding a sword. AT its side
reposes the Bavarian lion, the guardian of
the kingdom. The figure is hollow and
| fitted with stairs. There are twelve char
acters in bronze, and the monument was
six years in preparation, being unveiled
August I, 1850. 1t was erected by King
Louis j. and modelled by Won Schwantheler,
and until our Goddess of Liberty was
| erected, was considered the most remark
able statue of modern times.
The other remarkable statue of recent
years is that of San Carlo Borromeo at
| Aroma, near the south end of Lake
| Maggiore, in Northern Italy. 1t was
erected in 1897 and stands on a hill on a
pedestal forty feet high. The head, feet
and hands were cast in bronze; the re-
mainder of the statue was formed by lay
| ing sheets of hammered copper on a
pillar of masonry. Three persons may
stand in the head
Colossal statues were numerous in Egypt
| Legions of them were raised. mostly of the
| hardest stone, many from fifty to sixty feet
| high. The most celebrated are the statues
| of Memnon, in the plain of Thebes, al
Koum- el-Sultan. The two statues, one OF
which is the celebrated vocal Memnon, one
| of the wonders of the old world, was orig
inally sixty feet high and made of coarse
gritstone. Both are seated on thrones, and
represent the monarch Amenaphis III,
probably about 1000 B. G. The peculiar
| characteristic of the vocal statue was its
giving out at various times sharp metallic
| ring. The reason tor this sound is va
riously ascribed to an artifice of the priests,
who struck the sonorous stone of which
the statue was made, to the passage of cur
rents OF air through the cracks, or the sud-
den expansion of aqueous particles under
! the suns rays. 1t became silent about fit
teen hundred years ago.
In Greece, Phidias' colossal statue OF
Jupiter $40 B. CO. was " the wonder of the
world at that time. 1t was of gold and
ivory and the masterpiece of the author
| He had previously made statue of Miner
va, of the same material, 80 feet high, and
also famous bronze of Pallas Athene, al
| Athens, the plume OF whose helmet and
the point of whose spear, like Liberty
torch, were landmarks for incoming sail
ors. Lisippus, in the time of Alexander
the Great, over 300 years B. c., erected a
statue 60 feet high, which Fabius, during
the second Roman war, was anxious to
take to Rome, but was prevented by its
weight.
Ancient Rome had a bronze statue Of
| Augustus in the Forum; one of Nero in
marble fully 100 feet high, from which the
contiguous amphitheater is believed to have
derived the name of " Colosseum" and g
bronze statue of Apollo and one of Jupiter
upon the Capitol, made from the armor Of
the Samnites They were colossal in size