The Rhodians supported Ptolemy in this struggle. This angered Antigous who sent his son Demetrius to capture and punish the city of Rhodes. The war was long and painful. Demetrius brought an army of 40,000 men. This was more than the entire population of Rhodes. He also augmented his force by using Aegean pirates. The city was protected by a strong, tall, wall and the attackers were forced to use siege towers to try and climb over it. Siege towers were wooden structures often armed with catapults that could be moved up to a defender's walls to allow the attackers to scale them.

While some were designed to be rolled up on land, Demetrius used a giant tower mounted on top of six ships lashed together to make his attack. This tower, though, was turned over and smashed when a storm suddenly approached. The battle was won by the Rhodians. 

Demetrius had a second supertower built. This one stood almost 150 feet high and some 75 feet square at the base. It was equipped with many catapults and skinned with wood and leather to protect the troops inside from archers. It even carried water tanks that could be used to fight fires started by flaming arrows. This tower was mounted on iron wheels and could be rolled up to the walls. 

When Demetrius attacked the city, the defenders stopped the war machine by flooding a ditch outside the walls and miring the heavy monster in the mud. By then almost a year had gone by and a fleet of ships from Egypt arrived to assist the city. Demetrius withdrew quickly leaving the great siege tower where it was. 

To celebrate their victory and freedom, the Rhodians decided to build a giant statue of their patron god Helios. They melted down bronze from the many war machines Demetrius left behind for the exterior of the figure and the super siege tower became the scaffolding for the project. According to Pliny, a historian who lived several centuries after the Colossus was built, construction took 12 years. Other historians place the start of the work in 304 B.C.. 

The statue was one hundred and ten feet high and stood upon a fifty-foot pedestal near the harbor mole. Although the statue has been popularly depicted with its legs spanning the harbor entrance so that ships could pass beneath, it was actually posed in a more traditional Greek manner: nude, wearing a spiked crown, shading its eyes from the rising sun with its right hand, while holding a cloak over its left. 

The Colossus of Rhodes, which was commissioned by Chares of Lindos, was believed to be started after 304 B.C. and took 12 years to finish. The Colossus was built on a pedestal 50 ft. high. All in all, the Colossus was about 160 ft. tall. It was not as solid as most statues built at that time. It was a framework made of iron, and skin of bronze. The builders added stones to the framework to make the Colossus stable. The pedestal, which was made of white marble, was built first. Then the stone columns were made, and iron rods were put in the columns to shape out the Colossus. 

The island of Rhodes was an important economic centre in the ancient world. It is located off the southwestern tip of Asia Minor where the Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean. The capitol city, also named Rhodes, was built in 408 B.C. and was designed to take advantage of the island's best natural harbour on the northern coast. In 357 B.C. the island was conquered by Mausolus of Halicarnassus (whose tomb is one of the other Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), fell into Persian hands in 340 B.C., and was finally captured by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.. 

One day (226 BC) a great earthquake came to the island and Colossus trembled and shook until it came crashing down. It was so broken up it could not be put back together. The people of Rhodes left the remains where it fell for about 800 years. 

Today, people can read about the great sculpture in books but never again will it be looked upon. Legend has it that in 653 AD Moabiah; first Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, powerful sovereign of the Arabic world carried away the relics and sold it to a Jewish merchant. 

Ever so often pieces of bronze are found that were once a part of the great huge statue. The Colossus of Rhodes has inspired many artist down through the centuries including a modern French sculptor named Auguste Barthold, whose work became every bit as famous, for he created the Statue of Liberty.