as to boldness of design, the examples are innumerable; for we had statues of colossal bulk, equal to towers in size. such, for instance, is the apollo in the capitol, which was brought by lucullus from apollonia, a city of pontus, thirty cubits in height, and which cost five hundred talents: also the statue of jupiter, in the campus martius, dedicated by the late emperor claudius, but which appears dwarfed from its vicinity to the theatre of pompey: and the jupiter at tarentum, forty cubits in height, the work of lysippus. it is a remarkable circumstance that although this statue is so nicely balanced as to be movable by the hand, it has never been thrown down by a tempest. this, the artist guarded against, 278 by a column erected at a short distance from it, upon the side on which the violence of the wind required to be broken. on account of its magnitude, and the great difficulty of moving it, fabius maximus did not touch it, when he transferred the hercules from that place to the capitol, where it now stands.

but far the most worthy of our admiration is the colossal statue of the sun, which stood formerly at rhodes, and was the work of chares the lindian, a pupil of lysippus;[216] no less than seventy cubits in height. this statue, fifty-six years after it was erected, was thrown down by an earthquake; but even as it lies, it excites our wonder and admiration. few men can clasp the thumb in their arms, and its fingers are larger than most statues. where the limbs are broken asunder, vast caverns are seen yawning in the interior. within it, too, are to be seen large masses of rock, by the weight of which the artist steadied it while erecting it. it was twelve years before this statue was completed, and three hundred talents were expended upon it; a sum raised from the engines of warfare which had been abandoned by king demetrius when tired of the long-protracted siege of rhodes. in the same city are other colossal statues, one hundred in number; which though smaller than the one already mentioned, would, any one of them, wherever erected, have ennobled the place. in addition to these, there are five colossal statues of the gods, which were made by bryaxis.

in italy the tuscan apollo, in the library of the temple of 279 augustus, is fifty feet in height from the toe; and it is a question whether it is more remarkable for the quality of the metal, or for the beauty of the workmanship. spurius carvilius erected the statue of jupiter. capitolinus, after he had conquered the samnites, who fought in obedience to a most solemn oath; it was formed out of their breast-plates, greaves, and helmets, and is of such large dimensions that it may be seen from the statue of jupiter latiaris on the alban mount, twelve miles from rome. he made his own statue, which is at the feet of the other one, out of the filings of the metal. there are also, in the capitol, two heads which are very much admired, and which were dedicated by the consul lentulus, one of them executed by the above-mentioned chares, the other by decius; but the latter is so greatly excelled by the former, as to have all the appearance of being the work of one of the poorest of artists.

colossus at rhodes.

but all these gigantic statues have been surpassed in our own age by the mercury, made by zenodotus for the city of 280 the arverni in gaul, which was ten years in completing, and cost four hundred thousand sesterces. having given sufficient proof there of his artistic skill, he was sent for by nero to rome, where he made a colossal statue intended to represent that prince, one hundred and ten feet in height. in consequence, however, of the public detestation of nero’s crimes, this statue was consecrated to the sun.[217] we used to admire in his studio the accurate likeness not only in the model of clay, but in the small sketches which served as the first foundation of the work. this statue proves that the art of fusing precious bronze was then lost, for nero was prepared to furnish the requisite gold and silver, and zenodotus was inferior to none of the ancients, either as a designer or as an engraver. at the time that he was working at the statue for the arverni, he copied for dubius avitus, the governor of the province, two drinking-cups, chased by the hand of calamis, which had been highly prized by germanicus c?sar, and had been given by him to his preceptor cassius silanus, the uncle of avitus; and this with such exactness, that they could scarcely be distinguished from the originals.