New Britain herald., 1924-08-20
RHODES HAS YOUNG
 IDEAS IN OLD DAYS
Vas Really Originator Of Civic
 Advertising Idea

Washington, Aug, sb,- 'khoass~ the city and island Of the Colossus
 So" says bulleiiR from me Washington, D, c, headqaFsens el me National Geographic Society, Ideas follow one another in most minds whenever Rhodes Is menlionedi prov ing that one of the greatest Of moa' srn industries, advertising, has HIS roots in antiquity, For this civic monument of Rhodes stood only DO years, yet it advertised the city So well that il has identified Rhodes for the go centuries since t fell"
 The bulletin goes on ia describe this island in the eastern Mediterranean sea, scene of a recent concentration of Italian troops
 Al Marine Crossroads,
 "One way of arienting Rhodes geo- graphically is to describe il as the largest of the nadeeanese Islands II it the most eastward Of the great group of isles and islets that nep- Der the the Aegean sea- Further eastward in the Mediterranean He only tiny coastal islets, like kastelo- rixo. and the one big island. Cyprus Of all the islands east Of the Greelan peninsula only Cyprus and Crete es- ceed Rhodes in size.
 "Rhodes was in the favored ioea- ton Of its day. at the crossing or inc marine highways between Byzan- tium, Greece and Italy on the one hand, and on the other Egypt, south eastern Asia Minor, and Syria. gate way to the east. Inevitably great maritime and commercial community grew up on Rhodes: 1t took the torch of Mediterranean commerce rom Phoenicia to pass it on later to Byzan- tium. Rome. Genoa and Venice. II seems natural enough 10 lind old Greek and Roman historians refer ring literally 10 the Rhodes of the third and second centuries before Christ as the distributing center of the Levant. It would hardly be sur prising in view of this familiar phraseology to find 'letterheads' of the Rhodian chamber of commerce of that day with tho truthful enough slogan: Rhodes trade territory is the world Rhodes was world center in still another way, for in the days of Ptolemy the geographer. if was taken as tho initial point for 1ongi- tude as Greenwich is today.
 "As a result of Rhodes dominant commercial position. it's laws and coinage were the standards of their day throughout the Mediterranean. The Rhodians. too, were colonizers
 .&. +I,A shores of Asia Minor, Africa, Greece, Italy and even Spain.
 Rebuilt by Ancient Relief Fund.
 Incident after incident crops up in Rhodian history to tie Rhodes to the ways of today. Like Washington, the city of Rhodes was laid out, on tis establishment in 40S B. C., ac- cording to an ordered plan, by an architectural engineer-Hippodam of Miletus. The new city was given a sort of commission form of gov ernment consisting of a group of six executives. When Rhodes was de- stroyed by earthquake in 227 R. C., it received the practical sympathy of its world as Tokyo did in 1923; relief funds were sent from all the Hellenic states to repair the damage. Even the Great Colossus was a victory statue,' made of enemy catapults and other war engines-the 'gun-metap of the day.
 Perhaps the most picturesque era in Rhodes history was from 1909 to 1922 when it was the stronghold of the crusading Knights of St. John and the bulwark of Christendom against the Moslems. The old Greek city had practically disappeared when the knights came and they built anew great meats and walls, bastions and towers. and staunch stone dwellings, They evacuated the city to the Turks in 1929, but the deep marks their two centuries of occupancy left remain