Colossus (pronounced kuh-los-us)
(1) A statue of gigantic size.
(2) Anything colossal, gigantic, or very
powerful.
(3) The internal name for Google's file system, introduced in 2010 and optimized for use in big-machine databases stored in multiple server clusters.
1350-1400: From the Middle English, from the Latin
colossus (statue larger than life), from
the Ancient Greek κολοσσός, (kolossós)
(statue or image, origin uncertain but thought most likely from a pre-Hellenic Mediterranean language) and the word
was used by Herodotus to describe large Egyptian statues. The figurative sense "anything of
awesome greatness or vastness" is from 1794, taken from the adjective colossal
(of extraordinary size, huge, gigantic), in use since 1712 although, colossic in the same sense is noted from
circa 1600 and there are instances of colossean
in the seventeenth century, both from the French colossal, from colosse, all
forms from the Latin colossus from the Greek kolossós. The noun Colosseum
dates from the 1560s, replacing the earlier Coliseum, the name in Medieval
Latin for the classical Amphitheatrum
Flavium (begun circa 70), noun use of the neuter of the adjective colosseus (gigantic), thought perhaps a reference
to the big statue of Nero that for so long stood nearby. Colossus is a noun' the noun plural is colossi or colossuses.
The plural of colossus doesn't often come up in conversation but when it does, the choice is between colossi and colossusus, the latter there to be used by anyone who finds unwelcome, for whatever reason, the adoption in
English of classical plural forms.
Not all words from Greek with a Latinised ending -us take the same
pluralisation and there's no objection either to colossuses or the Latinized
colossi; those who object to either probably suffer the condition known as
hyper-correctionism and it is a real phenomenon (the squabble about octopuses, octopodes and the charming octopi) and is
ongoing. All that can be recommended is consistency; in a document, either adopt the English plural forms or use the classical form but don't mix.
The
Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a very big statue, erected somewhere near
the port of the city of Rhodes, the biggest settlement on what is the one of
the larger Greek islands of the same name which lies off what is now Turkey’s Aegean
coast. Taking a dozen years to complete,
the statue, construction of which began in 292 BC, was erected to honor Elios,
the God of the Sun, who brought the inhabitants victory over Demetrius
Poliorcetes (Demetrius I of Macedon; “The Besieger" 337–283 BC) who laid siege to Rhodes in 305-304 BC. It stood for only sixty-odd years, collapsing
during a severe earthquake which struck in 226 BC, contemporary reports
indicating the structure fractured at both knees before toppling. Remarkably, the mostly bronze wreckage was
left substantially undisturbed for some eight-hundred years, becoming something
of a tourist attraction before, in 654, it was salvaged by Arab invaders under the
Muslim caliph Mu'awiya I (معاوية بن أبي سفيان, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; circa 600–680) who sold it to someone described as
“a Jewish merchant from Damascus” who is said to have carted it off on a camel
train of almost “a thousand beasts”.
Demetrios
the Besieger had a scandalous private life but had a flair for military
matters, noted too for innovations in engineering such as the machines and
devices built by his armies as siege engines.
However, even the forces he was able at deploy in 305-304 BC weren’t
sufficient to defeat the fortifications of Rhodes and eventually, Demetrios was
compelled to retreat, abandoning the siege machinery on the island. To give thanks to the Sun God, the Rhodians granted
the commission to build a triumphal statue to Helios to the sculptor Chares of
Lindos (Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, circa 330 BC-circa 280 BC),
a pupil of Lysippos (Λύσιππος; fourth century BC) and, in the dozen years
between 304-292 BC, he supervised the construction.
Before the Colossus, Rhodes had long been famous for its statues, the contemporary accounts probably as unreliable as any Roman histories but even if Pliny’s count of some three-thousand was an exaggeration, the writing of others do suggest there were doubtlessly a lot, many in stone, some in bronze, but nothing on the scale of the Colossus had even been attempted. There was a titanic statue, as they’re now known, in Olympus, a chryséléphantine (one made from Gold and ivory) study of Zeus some 13 m (42 feet) high, another of the seven wonders although the sculptor Phidias (Φειδίας, circa 480–430 BC) had avoided the fragility inherent in a standing figure by having Zeus sit in a chair. He had also built a chryshephantine statue of the goddess Athena but that stood but 9m (30 feet) high; by any standards, the titanic Colossus was truly colossal.
Beach Structurally,
the build was executed along the well-understood engineering principles of the
age, the base of white marble first installed to which were affixed the feet
and ankles, an iron and stone framework gradually formed as scaffolding and
structure proceeded in unison upwards. To
permit the workers to reach the highest levels, an earth ramp was built because
the heights involved meant a free-standing system of scaffolding would lack the
needed stability; when the work was complete, the earth ramp was demolished and
the soil carted off. While the
superstructure was built, workers cast the outer skin in bronze using plates,
the metal formed with copper melted in large ovens, to which iron, making 10-20%
of the mix, was added. Then the mouton
metal mixture was moved in large ladles to be distributed in clay molds, flat
structures used to form sheets varying in thickness according to need. Once cast,
the rough edges were ground away and the plates polished before they were transported
to the building site where they were hammered to the desired shape to be attached
to the iron structure, The thickest and heaviest
plates were those rendered for the feet and ankles, complex in the shape of
their curves and needing more mass to afford greater stability. Thus for a dozen years, the thin bronze skin was
added to the growing body of stone, each plate fixed to the iron frame and then
to the neighboring plate. Once
finished, it was polished to reflect the rays of the Sun so it would shine as
intensely as possible, better to honor Helios.
From
the laying of the first stone to its toppling, building its destruction lies a
time span of but sixty-seven years but the Colossus ranks as one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world with Great Pyramid of Giza which still stands
after almost five-thousand. Such was the
scale of the Colossus that the ruins still impressed, “…even lying on the ground, it is a marvel" wrote Pliny the
Elder (24-79) who noted few men could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and each
finger alone would have stood taller than most other statues. The earthquake which so damaged the city 226
BC broke the Colossus at its narrowest and thus weakest points, the knees, and
given the mass which existed above, there was no chance it could survive. Although it would be centuries before the
list of the seven wonders would exist as the codified canon now familiar, the
stature was already famous and the an offer to the pay the cost of restoration
was extended by Ptolemy III Euergetes (Πτολεμαῖος
Εὐεργέτης, Ptolemy the Benefactor;
circa 280–222 BC) of Egypt. However, an
oracle was consulted and their judgement forbade any re-construction so the offer
was declined. Details of the oracle’s
pronouncement are lost but it’s speculated the conclusion may have been the
earthquake was the act of a wrathful Helios and the ruins should be left where
they fell, lest anger again be aroused.
There is no otherwise compelling explanation to account for why so much
valuable bronze wouldn’t for centuries be recycled.
The exact location remains uncertain but the notion the Colossus straddled the entrance to Rhodes harbor with ships passing between its legs was a figment of medieval imagination, a thing famously vivid. Given its method of construction, such a thing would have collapsed under its own weight even before it was complete and, had it stood over the water, not only would construction have been challenging but when it fell, it would have blocked the entrance to the Mandraki harbor. Despite that, in the early 1980s when a large piece of rubble was discovered in the water, there were still romantics who hoped this might vindicate the medieval theory. There’s little doubt the story of a 60m (200 feet) tall Colossus straddling the entrance to the harbor was the work of opportunist poets and artists, the engineers and architects of the time sufficiently acquainted with physics and metallurgy to have assured all of the impossibility of their vision yet it seems long to have captured the medieval imagination. Despite all that, it still influenced many even at the dawn of modernity, being one of the inspirations for the Statue of Liberty but that was designed in a way to ensure greater strength and stability, the weight distribution and the dimensions of the base entirely different. There’s no doubt the statue stood somewhere in the proximity of Rhodes harbor but archaeological excavations have thus far revealed nothing, not unsurprising given the footprint of a vertical structure is much less than a temple or other building, and the urbanization of Rhodes over two millennia mean the site may long ago have been built-over. The Colossus though would have shared one noted characteristic with the Statue of Liberty: When copper rubs on iron, it creates electricity, especially in a costal environment with salty air. Like Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes made its own electricity.
Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911–2005; Premier of Queensland 1968-1987) (left), Russ Hinze (1919–1991; Minister for this and that in Queensland state government, 1974-1988) (centre) & Bob Hawke (1929–2019; Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991) (right). Russ Hinze was a politician who served in the state parliament of Queensland, Australia between 1966-1988. He held many portfolios, often simultaneously, one of which was minister for roads. In honor of his impressive girth, he was dubbed The Colossus of Roads.
Colossus was the name of the world’s first electronic device which truly could be described a computer (being programmable, electronic and digital although the instructions were effected by switches, not stored programs). It was built by the British in 1943 to break German military codes and was one of the mechanisms which provided the allies with the ultra decrypts, the importance of which to the war effort was of critical significance or merely helpful depending on the historian consulted. During the war, twelve of the machines were assembled (which functioned independently; clusters and farms then an engineer's dream) but two didn't become functional until after the end of hostilities. Colossus and the whole code-breaking operation remained a well-kept secret until the mid-1970s and the revelation induced some re-assessment of the strategic and tactical acuity of a number of political and military leaders, many of their decisions once through based on intuition or brilliance now understood as merely the use of good intelligence (ie "reading the enemy's mail").
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