The Bronze God of Rhodes
L. Sprague de Camp
BOOK I — KALLIAS
I am Chares of Lindos, who built the Colossus of Rhodes. Stranger, as you look upon this mighty eidolon of glowing bronze, you may think: Happy Chares! As long as that great statue stands, the glory of his name will remain green.
But will it? Time buries all. Who now knows the name of him who built the gigantic pyramid of King Souphis, which rises in gleaming majesty from the desert sands above the Nile?
Nor is the question solely one of my personal credit. My statue also honors the people of Rhodes for their heroic resistance to the forces of lawless greed and tyrannical power. It honors them for proving that, in this world of sprawling empires and royal rapacity, the spirit of free, self-governing Hellenes, living under laws that they themselves have made, still lives.
With the ever-widening spread of letters and libraries in the world, it has become the fashion for men of mark to set down their personal recollections. Therefore, lest the honor due my city-state and my statue wither like an anemone in the summer sun, I shall write an account of the deadly struggle that led up to the construction of the Colossus. Perhaps when, as the Chaldeans prophesy, Rhodes shall have sunk back into the sea which gave her birth, this memoir shall still be copied by scribbling slaves, and the glory of Chares the Lindian and of the city which he adorned shall live on in the minds of men.
Sixteen years after the death of the divine Alexander of Macedon, I returned to the Isle of the Three Cities from seven years' study abroad.
These were restless times. The Successors still contended over the corpse of Alexander's empire, none being strong enough to possess himself of the whole, none willing to content himself with less. Kasandros ruled Macedonia; Lysi-machos governed Thrace; Antigonos held sway over Anatolia and Syria; Ptolemaios held Egypt; and Seleukos controlled Babylonia. As they shamelessly pursued their selfish interests, the world resounded to the tramp of armored men. Great cities were sacked and burnt by mercenary hordes, and the flames that consumed them were reflected redly in the scarlet streams that ran through the streets.
Few of the city-states of Hellas retained their independence, however ardently they connived, dodged, and sought by secret plot and frantic flattery to fend off the Macedonian warlords. But my beloved Rhodes, though briefly invested with a Macedonian garrison in the days of Alexander, now stubbornly maintained its liberty. Although, in the first war of the Successors, the Macedonian general Attalos, of Eumenes' faction, had attacked us, our small but superbly trained navy had roundly trounced him.
On a fine summer morn in the second year of the 118th Olympiad, the trading ship Galatea, of Kition in Cyprus, entered the harbor of Rhodes. Standing on the cargo-cluttered deck and braced against the roll by leaning against an oil jar, I watched the sailors furl the yellow sail and put out the oars. Slowly we pulled around the North Mole, which shields the Little Harbor from Boreas, and steered for the quays.
Before me lay the City of Roses. Red-roofed houses, with gleaming whitewashed walls, rose tier upon tier, like the curving seats of a theater. Along the waterfront, emerald palms waved languid fronds in the gentle breeze, while farther back the dark green spearheads of cypresses stood in soldierly rows. On the left, in the middle distance, rose the tawny slopes of the akropolis, crowned by the golden-marble temple of. Helios-Apollon, our ancestor and tutelary deity.
Above all glowed the bright blue bowl of the luminous Rhodian sky. Perhaps the brilliance of the colors made my eyes smart; perhaps it was the sight of my homeland that brought the tears, in spite of the fact that I had embarked unwillingly, brought to heel by my father's threat to cut off all support.
Beside me, Zenon said: "It looks more like a painting than an authentic city. The gods grant that the warlords destroy it not."
Zenon was a tall, swart, stoop-shouldered, gangling young Phoenician of my own age, with a great hooked beak of a nose. He was returning home to Kition from a trading voyage to Argos. We chatted as fellow travelers will, although to tell the truth I found him a dour and somber companion.
Bemusedly, I replied: "Yes, Protogenes the artist used to say that, given the colors of Rhodes, what painter would look elsewhere for a background? Can't you see a colossal statue of Alexander, like the one I have dreamt of building, towering over the waterfront?"
"I can imagine a colossal statue readily enough, but why of Alexander?"
"Why not? For all that he was a little fellow, didn't he achieve the greatest deeds of any mortal since the beginning of time?"
Zenon spat over the rail. "Such as massacring and enslaving the Tyrians? You are part Phoenician yourself; you should weigh such monstrous crimes before ascribing godhood to that backwoods butcher."
"I don't approve of all that he did; but, if not Alexander, whom? Who is great enough to stand beside him?"
Zenon shrugged. "I am neither artist nor historian."
My slave Kavaros leaned against the rail, moodily tugging his long red mustache. He was a Kelt, one of those tall, pale-faced, warlike barbarians who, swarming out of the trackless northern forests, have overrun the Getic country and raided deeply into Thrace and Macedonia. He turned his head to say:
"Ah, if I was only a free man, young master, I would be finding that city as beautiful as you do. Why do you not let me work a bit for myself in my off time, now? I would soon be buying myself back, so you would not be the loser at all."
"We tried that on the mainland," said I sharply. "As soon as you had a few drachmai, you either gave it away to beggars or got drunk and went around breaking people's heads, and I had to pay your fines. Is all the gear packed?"
"It is that, sir."
We tied up to a quay. I thanked the captain for a safe voyage and said to Kavaros:
"Let's get the gear ashore. Take that end of the chest."
A sculptor cannot travel light. The box with my hammers, chisels, gouges, rasps, files, knives, modeling tools, calipers, scales, square, plumb bob, brushes, and whetstones weighed nearly three talents* (*A talent = about 60 pounds.). There were also our bags of clothes and effects and a special workstand that my fellow pupil Eutychides and I had invented, with a top pivoted to turn like a potter's wheel, so that the sculptor could spin his model any way he liked instead of trotting round and round his stand.
Kavaros raised his end of the chest with a grunt, his great arm muscles rippling. "A pity it is; sir, that you could not have picked a profession like the gentleman in Athens who collects butterflies. Your gear would make easier carrying, I am thinking."
I helped Kavaros to carry the stuff down the gangplank. A sculptor cannot be snobbish about using his hands. Kavaros set down his end of the chest on his toes and clove the luminous Rhodian air with a howl. While he cursed in Keltic, I sought for bearers, knowing Kavaros to be useless in any mission that called for chaffering.
Many dock side loafers lounged in the sunshine, but none offered himself. I suppose our liturgies, whereby the rich are made to feed the poor, are better than the class warfare that once ravaged the island. But it does give us a group of idlers who will not work though work be proffered.
I accosted a pair with a carrying pole. Doubtless my Argive tunic made them take us for strangers, for one said:
"Five drachmai will do, young sir."
I let my temper boil over. "Dog-faced temple thieves!" I shouted. "D'you think that as a stranger I'm fair game?" I laid on my strongest Rhodian Doric, the dialect of Lindos, and after a bit of bargaining they cut the price in half.
When the chest had been lashed to the pole, I said: "Kavaros, pick up the rest and follow me."