ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that the Colossus of Rhodes overlooked this second harbour. The island of Rhodes, 16 km off the south-western corner of the Anatolian mainland, sat on two ancient sea routes: between Egypt and Cyrenaica to the south and the Ionian trading towns along the Anatolian coast to its north. The idea that the Colossus stood legs apart across one of the harbour mouths of Rhodes is a medieval misapprehension, first retailed by an Italian visitor to Rhodes in 1395 who gleaned it from a local tradition which claimed the right foot once stood where the little round church of St John of the Colossus was located in his time. But maybe the Colossus broken was just about as impressive in its way as the Colossus upstanding and the oracle against setting it up again may have contrarily conferred an extra special status on it.
