Colossus
a Greek word of unknown origin, used to denote a statue very greatly beyond the size of life. The "Bavaria," the "Germania," and our own "Liberty" are noted modern examples.
The colossal was the peculiar characteristic of Egyptian art, and innumerable colossi were raised in Egypt, mostly of the hardest stone, many of them from 50 to 60 feet in height. The most celebrated is the vocal statue of Memnon, in the plain of Thebes.
It was in Greece, however, that the most famous colossi appeared; e. g., the bronze statue of Pallas Athene, on the Acropolis of Athens, the plume of whose helmet and the point of whose spear were landmarks to sailors between Sunium and Athens; another statue of the same goddess, of gold and ivory-the so-called Palladium in the Parthenon at Athens; and the Olympian Jupiter, of the same materials, the masterpiece of Phidias.
Among the Seven Wonders of the Old World was reckoned the gigantic Colossus of Rhodes, representing Phœbus, the national deity of the Rhodians. It was erected in honor of the sun by Chares of Lindus, disciple of Lysippus, 290 or 288 B. C. The figure stood upon two moles, a leg being extended on each side of the harbor, so that a vessel in full sail could pass between.
COLPORTEUR (kol-por-ter), a French term now naturalized in the United States, and appropriated to a class of men most commonly employed by societies or associations to distribute religious publications.