Rhodes History

History of Rhodes island Greece

Rhodes was inhabited at the Neolithic era. In 322BC, Rhodes was joined with the empire of Alexander the Great. After his death , Rhodes maintained in close trade with the kingdom of Ptolemy's in Egypt. In 164BC, Rhodes signed a treaty with Rome. At the first century of our era,St Paul visited the island. Between 1307 and 1522, the island was the seat of the order of Knights of St John of Jerusalem. The Knights occupied Rhodes in 1307 and completed the conquest in 1310 . They strengthened the city, leaving the Great current walls. In the low part of Rhodes, they built the palace of the Great Master . The island was a first seat in 1480, before falling to the hands from the Turks from Soleiman the Magnificent in 1522, after a five month siege. In 1912, Italy seized the island which belonged to the Turks then. The island reunited with Greece in 1948.The Colossus of Rhodes
After defeating Demetrius Poliorcetes in 305 BC, the citizens of Rhodes used their booty to erect a thank offering to their divine patron Helios. Chares of Lindos, a pupil of Lysippus, built (292-280 BC) a bronze statue of the nude young god wearing a sun-ray crown and looking out to sea. Many stories exaggerate the size of the statue; it must, however, have been approximately 36 m (120 ft) high on a base of white marble 6-7.5 m (20-25 ft) high and thus larger than any other statue. It stood beside, not over, the harbor. Although reinforced with stone and iron, the Colossus broke at the knees and fell in an earthquake 60 years later. It remained a wonder until the Arab invasion (AD 653), when it was broken up and sold for scrap metal. Nothing of it remains except very dubious copie.