Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1886-12-01
SOMETHING ABOUT COLOsSL
Dimensions of the Great Statues of
Ancient Times.


$ now the must important in the
world, We're more on the globe before
The birth OF Christ Than to-day. The
ancient and famous maritime countries
.uou,s the Mediterranean Sea literally
ieemed wSh them. TIE Colossus OF
Rhodes, erected by Chares of Lindus,
u honor OF the sun, is one of the best
known 10 ancient writers, and was one
of the seven wonders of the world. Ii
w95 OF b:.tSs. cast In separate pieces,
and was twelve years in process of cree
ton, being completed $50 3. e.. 1t was
s,atue of Apollo, and is varlously es-
timated to have been ninety feet,
nine>y cdbits AMI even one hundred
nd five cub IS in height. Its weight
was 10000 pounds. Standing, as it
did, with a leg extended on each side of
the harbor, vessels under full sail could
enter between them. A flight of wind
ing stairs led TO the top. The cost was
900 talents, or very nearly half mil
lion of dollars. Sixty years later it was
thrown by an earthquake, where il lay
until A. ID. 653, when the Saracens,
the captors of Rhodes, sold 1t TO the
jews, who transported it to Alexandria
OIL the backs of 900 camels. Rhodes,
which now has a population of only
10000, in the height of its prosperity
had over 3 ,000 staeIe5, of which 100
were eol0ssI.
The BarthG,di statue is $50 feet high
and weighs 20 tons.
Bavaria, the great female statue at
hot ,Arrr
until the Bartholdi, was said to be the
next in size to the Colos kls of Rhodes
IL is So feet high, with a pedestal 100
feet, aud IS cast from the bronze OF
Tarkish and Norwegian cannon. The
hgure is partially draped, holding a
sword. At Its side reposes the Bava-
rian lion, the guardian Of the kingdom.
The figure is hollow and iitted with
stairs. There are twelve characters in
bronze, and the monument was six
Years in preparation, being unveiled
August Z. 1850. IL was erected 10y
King Louis 1. and modelled by Won
Schwantheler, and until orr Goddess of
Liberty was erected was considered the
most remarkable statue Of modern
times.
The other remarkable statue of re-
cent years is that of san Carlo BOr-
romeo at Aroma. near the south end of
Lake Maggiore, in Northern Italy. 1t
was erected in 1857 and stands Oh a hill
on a pedestal forty feet high. The
statue itself is s.x,y-six feet high. The
head, feet and hands were cast ia
bronze; the remainder OF the statue was
formed by laying sheets of hammered
copper on pillar of masonry. Three
persons may stand in the head.
Colossal statues were numerous In
Egypt. Legions Of them were raised,
,',astl- Of the hardest stone, MAJ y frCm
hfty to sixty feet high. The most cele-
brated are the statues of MemnOn, IN
the plain of Thebes, at koumel-Sultan.
The two statues, one of whi3h is the
celebrated vocal Memnon, one of the
wonders Of the old world, were origin
ally sixty feet high and made of
coarse gritstOne. Both are seated on
thrones and represent the Monarch
Amenaphis I'LL, probably about 1900
B. G. The peculiar characteristic of
The vocal statue was its giving out at
varioaS times a sharp metallic ring.
The reason for this sound is variously
aScribed to al ar.iflee Of the priests
who struck the sCnOr0us stone of which
the statue was mads, to the passage of
currents Of air through the cracks. or
the SUDDEN expansion of aqueous par
tioies under the suns rays 1t became
sEent about l, 500 years ago.
In Greece, Phidias's colossal statue
OF Jupiter (440 B. T.. was "the wonder
Of the world" at that ti1le. 1t was of
gold and ivory and the masterpiece of
the author. lie had previously made
4 statue of Minerva, OF the same ma
terial, thirty-nin feet high, and also a
famous bronze of Pallas Athene, at
Athens, the plume of whose helmet and
the point of whose spear, like Liberty's
torch, were landmarks for incoming
sailors. Lisippus, III the time of Alex
ander the Great, over sou years B. g.,
y statue sixty feet high, which
Fabius, during the second war, was
anxious to take to Rome, but was pre-
vented by its weight.
Ancient Rome had a bronze statue Of
Augustus in the Forum; one of Nero
III marble fully 10 feet high, from
which the cOntinguOus amphitheatre is
believed to have derived the name of
Colosseum" and bronze statue of
Apollo and one of Jupiter upon the
capitol, made from the armor OF the
Samnites. They were colossal IN size.