The giant weapon tower became a wonder of the ancient world

In the late 4th century BC, after the death of Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Rhodes developed close commercial and cultural ties with Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy I, creating a controlling alliance. trade across the Aegean Sea. The king of Macedon, Antigonus I, felt threatened by this alliance. He feared that Ptolemy I could use the island of Rhodes as a base to attack Macedonia, and that the Rhodesians could even provide ships and supplies to the pharaoh.

Antigonus I decided to break this alliance. In 305 BC, he sent his son and future king of Macedonia, Demetrius, with a large fleet of warships to besiege Rhodes. The first objective is to capture the island’s harbor. Demetrius quickly built his own harbor next to the original harbor and a dike to protect his sea operations. At the same time, his army devastated the island and built a large camp on land close to the city of Rhodes but still out of range.

During the war, both sides used a variety of technological devices such as mines and various siege engines, most notably Demetrius’s giant siege tower called Helepolis, or “Captain of Cities”. .

Helepolis Tower has a tapering shape, about 40 m high, made of wood and covered with iron plates. The inside of the tower is divided into several floors, where hundreds of people lie waiting to attack the city walls with catapults and castle-breaking vehicles. For firing, the tower’s front wall was equipped with multiple cannon ports and protected by mechanically adjustable doors, lined with leather stuffed with wool and seaweed to prevent fire. The entire tower, weighing 160 tons, is placed on 8 wheels, each about 4.5 m high. It took 3,400 people working in rotating groups to push and bring the tower into the correct position in front of the city wall.

As a result, the Rhodes army fiercely attacked Helepolis, even destroying some of the iron plates surrounding the tower, leaving the easily damaged wooden structure exposed. To protect Helepolis, Demetrius ordered the tower to be withdrawn. A year later, the Rhodes relief force consisting of many ships that Ptolemy sent arrived. Demetrius and his army abandoned the siege, leaving behind most of their machinery and weapons.

A decade later, the Rhodesians melted down all the weapons Demetrius’ army left behind, including the iron plates of Helepolis, and sold the rest of the tower. With the money and materials they collected such as copper and iron, they built the Statue of the Sun God Rhodes to commemorate the war against their heroic enemies. The giant statue is built from an iron frame with copper plates attached to form the skin. Then, masons filled the structure with stone blocks. The statue stands on a 15 m high marble pedestal. By 280 BC, the statue was completed after 12 years of construction.

The Statue of the Sun God Rhodes only existed for 54 years. An earthquake occurred in Rhode in 226 BC, causing the statue to break its knees and collapse. The fragments of the statue were eventually collected and melted down when Rhodes fell to the Arabs in 653. The resulting bronze was sold to a Jewish merchant. This person needed more than 900 camels to transport all the copper.

Although no longer in existence, both the Heliopolis tower and the Colossus of Rhodes have a strong mark in modern culture. For example, the design of the Statue of Liberty in New York was inspired by the Statue of the Sun of Rhodes – a structure considered one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.