1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chares (of Lindus)

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20537051911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 5 — Chares (of Lindus)

CHARES, of Lindus in Rhodes, a noted sculptor, who fashioned for the Rhodians a colossal bronze statue of the sun-god, the cost of which was defrayed by selling the warlike engines left behind by Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he abandoned the siege of the city in 303 B.C. (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 41). The colossus was seventy cubits (105 ft.) in height; and its fingers were larger than many statues. The notion that the legs were planted apart, so that ships could sail between them, is absurd. The statue was thrown down by an earthquake after 56 years; but the remains lay for ages on the spot.