COLOSSUS, ko-los'iis, in sculpture, a statue of enormous magnitude, from which our adjective colossal is derived. The people of the East from the most ancient times have been celebrated for colossal sculpture. The pagodas of China and of India and the excavated cav erns of the East abound with colossi of every description. The Asiatics, the Egyptians, and in particular, the Greeks, have excelled in these works. The celebrated colossus of Rhodes was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. It was raised by the Rhodians in honor of Apollo. Strabo, Pliny and other ancient authors who lived at the time that the colossus of Rhodes is said to have been in existence have given its height as 70 cubits, or about 105 feet. Other authors who flourished since its destruction report its height at 80 cubits. The statue stood at the entrance of the harbor of Rhodes, but there is no authority for the state ment that it bestrode the harbor mouth and that the Rhodian vessels could pass under its legs. Of other colossal statues of ancient times the most celebrated are the Olympian Zeus and the Athena of the Parthenon, both the work of Phidias. The virgin goddess was represented in a noble attitude, 26 cubits or 39 feet in height, erect, clothed in a tunic reaching to the feet. In her hand she bran dished a spear, and at her feet lay her buckler and a dragon of admirable execution, supposed to represent Erichthonius. The statue of Zeus
was 60 feet high. The earliest colossus re corded to have been sculptured in Rome was the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, which Spurius Carvilius placed in the capitol after his victory over the Samnites.
Among modern works of this nature are the colossus of San Carlo Borromeo at Arona in the Milanese territory; the four colossal statues at Paris in front of the facade of the palace of the Chamber of Deputies, representing four of the greatest French legislators; and a statue of Germania, 34 feet high, on a pedestal over 81 feet high, erected near Riidesheim in com memoration of the unification of the German Empire. In the United States a figure of "Lib erty Enlightening the World," 151 feet high on a pedestal 155 feet high, has been erected in New York, overlooking the harbor and serving as a beacon. It was the work of the French sculptor Bartholdi, and was constructed mainly through the efforts of a French-American Union formed in 1874. In 1880 it was pre sented by France to the United States, and six years later it was placed on its present site, Bedloe's Island.
The statue of Charles IV of Spain at the head of the Paseo de la Reforma in the City of Mexico is the largest equestrian statue on the American continent and the second largest in the world.