Colossus of Rhodes
A 33-metre bronze Helios that stood for just 54 years
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After beating off the siege of Demetrius Poliorcetes, the Rhodians spent 12 years and the money from the sold siege engines on a bronze statue of the sun god Helios about 33 metres tall. Around 226 BC an earthquake toppled it, and the fragments lay on the ground for eight more centuries. Despite the famous pictures, it did not straddle the harbour mouth.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 3rd century BC
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Middle East
- 312 BC Seleucus retakes Babylon: the Seleucid era — 20 years earlier
- 301 BC The Battle of Ipsus — 9 years earlier
Africa
- 305 BC Ptolemy I proclaims himself king — 13 years earlier
- c. 300 BC Euclid's Elements — 8 years earlier
- c. 285 BC Library of Alexandria — 7 years later
- c. 280 BC–247 BC Lighthouse of Alexandria — 12 years later
Americas
- c. 300 BC Maya script — 8 years earlier
- c. 300 BC–150 El Mirador, capital of the Preclassic Maya — 8 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Mencius (aged 80)
- Epicurus (aged 49)
- Euclid (aged 33)
- Ashoka (aged 12)
- Zhuangzi (aged 77)
- Ptolemy I Soter (aged 75)
- Pyrrho (aged 68)
- Pytheas (aged 58)
- Qu Yuan (aged 48)
- Zeno of Citium (aged 42)