Helepolis: The Failed War Machine From Which Rose a Wonder of The Ancient World

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. 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. 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. The King of Macedonia, Antigonus I, felt threatened by this alliance. 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. Antigonus 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 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 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. 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. In the course of the siege, both sides employed many technical devices such as mines and counter mines and various siege engines. The most sensational feature of the siege was Demetrius’ mammoth siege tower, nicknamed the Helepolis, or “taker of cities”. Model of the Helepolis siege engine, at Thessaloniki Technology Museum, Greece.