Throughout the siege, the Helepolis was mercilessly attacked by the Rhodians, and they even managed to tear down some of the iron plating covering the tower, exposing the vulnerable timber structure. It took 3,400 men working in relays to push and position the tower in front of the walls. The entire tower, weighing 160 tons, rested on eight wheels, each 15 feet high. In order to fire these missiles, the forward wall was provided with various artillery ports and shielded by mechanically adjustable shutters, lined with skins stuffed with wool and seaweed to render them fireproof. The interior was divided into several stories where hundreds of men lay waiting to attack the city walls with rock catapults and battering rams. The Helepolis was a large tapering tower about 40 meters tall, built of timber and armored by iron plates. Three dimensional model and cross-section of Helepolis by Evan Mason. Model of the Helepolis siege engine, at Thessaloniki Technology Museum, Greece. The most sensational feature of the siege was Demetrius’ mammoth siege tower, nicknamed the Helepolis, or “taker of cities”. In the course of the siege, both sides employed many technical devices such as mines and counter mines and various siege engines. At the same time, his army ravaged the island and built a huge camp on land adjacent to the city but out of missile range. He at once built his own harbor alongside the original and a mole to protect his seaborne siege operations from counter-attack by means of a floating spiked boom. The city of Rhodes and its harbor was strongly fortified and Demetrius was unable to prevent supply ships from running his blockade, so his first concern was capturing the harbor. He feared that the Egyptian pharaoh might use the island of Rhodes as a base to attack Macedonia, and worse still, the Rhodians might actually provide ships and supplies to Ptolemy I to facilitate the attack.Īntigonus I decided to break this alliance, and in 305 BC, he sent his son and the future King of Macedonia, Demetrius, with a huge fleet of fighting vessels to siege the city of Rhodes. The King of Macedonia, Antigonus I, felt threatened by this alliance.

In the late 4th century BC, after the death of Alexander the Great, the Kingdom of Rhodes developed strong commercial and cultural ties with Ptolemy I of Egypt, and together formed an alliance that controlled trade throughout the Aegean Sea. Dedicated to the Greek sun-god Helios, the Colossus of Rhodes, stood more than a hundred feet tall and was a symbol of pride for the Rhodians who had successfully defended their city against an attempted siege by the Kingdom of Macedonia. At the entrance to the harbor of the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, there once stood a colossal statue made of iron, brass and stone.

Colossus of rhodes ruins