Rhodes
RHODES
An island and a famous city in the Levant, the ancient name of which was Ophiusa. Its modern name alludes to the great quantity and beauty of the roses that grew there. The island is about forty miles long and fifteen wide; its mountains are well wooded, and its valleys highly fertile. The city of Rhodes, at the northeast extremity of the island, was one of the most celebrated of the Greek cities. It was famous for its brazen Colossus, which was one hundred and five feet high, made by Chares of Lyndus: it stood at the mouth of the harbor of the city, on sixty marble columns, and continued perfect only fifty-six years, being thrown down by an earthquake, under the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes king of Egypt, who began to reign B.C. 244. When Paul went to Jerusalem, A. D. 58, he visited Rhodes, Mal 21:1 . Modern Rhodes is a Turkish walled town of 15,000 inhabitants, and considerable commerce. The air of Rhodes is proverbially pure, and its climate serene.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Rhodes
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When St. Paul, in his voyage from Troas to Caesarea, touched at the island of Rhodes (Act 21:1), 12 miles from the S. W. corner of Asia Minor, he was in sight, if only for an evening and morning, of a beautiful city which was for centuries the capital of one of the noblest free States of ancient Greece. With regard to harbours, roads, walls, and other buildings, it so far surpasses other cities, that we know of none equal, much less superior to it (Strabo, xiv. ii. 5). Highly favoured by Nature-the sun shines every day in Rhodes, said an ancient proverb (Pliny, Historia Naturalis (Pliny) ii. 62)-it owed still more to the naval enterprise, political wisdom, commercial integrity, and artistic genius of its people. On an amphitheatre of hills it was as carefully planned in 404 b.c.-by Hippodamus of Miletus, who also laid out the Piraeus-as a modern garden-city. Occupying so central a position in the world that geographers reckoned from it their parallels of latitude and longitude, it succeeded in making itself a focus of the traffic of three continents. After the time of Alexander the Great, it was the first naval power in the aegean, and its code of mercantile law was regarded as an ideal for all other States. Its opulence was merited by its humanity. The Rhodians, although their form of government is not democratic, are attentive to the welfare of the people, and endeavour to maintain the multitude of the poor. There are public officers in the State, the function of whom is to procure and distribute provisions, so that the poor may obtain subsistence, and the city not suffer for want of persons to serve her, especially in manning her fleets (Strabo, loc. cit.).
Such a commercial centre naturally attracted a colony of Jews, and about 139 b.c. Rhodes was one of the many free States to which Rome is said to have addressed a letter in favour of that race (1Ma 15:23). Rhodes alternately benefited by the deserved favour and suffered from the unworthy jealousy of the Romans. For assisting them in their war against Antiochus the Great, she received (189 b.c.) a large part of Lycia and Caria, but when she began to be dreaded as a possible rival of Rome itself, she was not only shorn of these possessions, but nearly ruined in her commerce by the raising of her rival Delos into a free port. In the Mithridatic war her services to Rome were again so signal, and she won so much glory by successfully resisting a great siege (88 b.c.), that she recovered some of her lost territory and all her former prestige. Finally, however, for taking Caesars part in the Civil War, she was so severely punished by Cassius, who robbed her of whole fleet (43 b.c.), that she never again attained her old prosperity. Vespasian made the island a part of the province of Lycia.
Rhodes was the city of the famous Colossus. Two specimens of her art are the Laocoon and the Toro Farnese. Her coins, with the Sun-god on the one side and the Rose on the other, are among the most beautiful in existence. Rhodes acquired a new fame in the Middle Ages as the home, for two centuries, of the Knights of St. John.
Literature.-J. P. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought2, 1896, ch. xv., Alexanders Empire, 1887, ch. xx.; C. Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, 1885; H. van Gelder, Geschichte der alten Rhodier, 1900.
James Strahan.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Rhodes
(RHODUS)
A titular metropolitan of the Cyclades (q. v.). It is an island opposite to Lycia and Caria, from which it is separated by a narrow arm of the sea. It has an area of about 564 sq. miles, is well watered by many streams and the river Candura, and is very rich in fruits of all kinds. The climate is so genial that the sun shines ever there, as recorded in a proverb already known to Pliny (Hist. natur., II, 62). The island, inhabited first by the Carians and then by the Phoenicians (about 1300 B.C.) who settled several colonies there, was occupied about 800 B.C. by the Dorian Greeks. In 408 B.C. the inhabitants of the three chief towns, Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus founded the city of Rhodes, from which the island took its name. This town, built on the side of a hill, had a very fine port. On the breakwater, which separated the interior from the exterior port, was the famous bronze statue, the Colossus of Rhodes, 105 feet high, which cost 300 talents. Constructed (280) from the machines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes had to abandon after his defeat before the town, it was thrown down by an earthquake in 203 B.C.; its ruins were sold in the seventh century by Caliph Moaviah to a Jew from Emesus, who loaded them on 900 camels. After the death of Alexander the Great and the expulsion of the Macedonian garrison (323 B.C.) the island, owing to its navy manned by the best mariners in the world, became the rival of Carthage and Alexandria. Allied with the Romans, and more or less under their protectorate, Rhodes became a centre of art and science; its school of rhetoric was frequented by many Romans, including Cato, Cicero, Cæsar, and Pompey. Ravaged by Cassius in 43 B.C. it remained nominally independent till A.D. 44, when it was incorporated with the Roman Empire by Claudius, becoming under Diocletian the capital of the Isles or of the Cyclades, which it long remained.
The First Book of Machabees (xv, 23) records that Rome sent the Rhodians a decree in favour of the Jews. St. Paul stopped there on his way from Miletus to Jerusalem (Acts 21:1); he may even have made converts there. In three other passages of Holy Writ (Genesis 10:4; 1 Chronicles 1:7; Ezekiel 27:15) the Septuagint renders by Rhodians what the Hebrew and the Vulgate rightly call Dodanim and Dedan. If we except some ancient inscriptions supposed to be Christian, there is no trace of Christianity until the third century, when Bishop Euphranon is said to have opposed the Encratites. Euphrosynus assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). As the religious metropolitan of the Cyclades, Rhodes had eleven suffragan sees towards the middle of the seventh century (Gelzer, “Ungedruckte. . . . Texte der Notitiæ episcopatuum”, 542); at the beginning of the tenth century, it had only ten (op. cit., 558); at the close of the fifteenth, only one, Lerne (op. cit., 635), which has since disappeared. Rhodes is still a Greek metropolitan depending on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. On 15 August, 1310, under the leadership of Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, the Knights of St. John captured the island in spite of the Greek emperor, Andronicus II, and for more than two centuries, thanks to their fleet, were a solid bulwark between Christendom and Islam. In 1480 Rhodes, under the orders of Pierre d’Aubusson, underwent a memorable siege by the lieutenants of Mahomet II; on 24 October, 1522, Villiers de l’Isle Adam had to make an honorable capitulation to Solyman II and deliver the island definitively to the Turks. From 1328 to 1546 Rhodes was a Latin metropolitan, having for suffragans the sees of Melos, Nicaria, Carpathos, Chios, Tinos, and Mycone; the list of its bishops is to be found in Le Quien (Oriens christ., III, 1049) and Eubel (Hierarchia catholica medii ævi, I, 205; II, 148; III, 188). The most distinguished bishop is Andreas Colossensis (the archdiocese was called Rhodes or Colossi) who, in 1416 at Constance and 1439 at Florence, defended the rights of the Roman Church against the Greeks, and especially against Marcus Eugenicus. After the death of Marco Cattaneo, the last residential archbishop, Rhodes became a mere titular bishopric, while Naxos inherited its metropolitan rights. On 3 March, 1797 it became again a titular archbishopric but the title was thenceforth attached to the See of Malta. Its suffragans are Carpathos, Leros, Melos, Samos, and Tenedos. By a decree of the Congregation of the Propaganda, 14 August, 1897, a prefecture Apostolic, entrusted to the Franciscans, was established in the Island of Rhodes; it has in addition jurisdiction over a score of neighbouring islands, of which the principal are Carpathos, Leros, and Calymnos. There are in all 320 Catholics, while the island, the capital of the vilayet of the archipelago, contains 30,000 inhabitants. The Franciscans have three priests; the Brothers of the Christian Schools have established there a scholasticate for the Orient as well as a school; the Franciscan Sisters of Gemona have a girls’ school. The most striking feature of the city, in addition to a series of medieval towers and fortifications, is the Street of the Knights, which still preserves their blason (Order of St. John) and the date of the erection of each house or palace; several of the mosques are former churches.
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MEURSIUS, Creta, Cyprus, Rhodus (Amsterdam, 1675): CORONELLI, Isola di Rodi geographica, storica (Venice, 1702); LE QUIEN, Oriens christ., I, 923 30; PAULSEN, Commentatio exhibens Rhodi descriptionem macedonica oetate (Göttingsn, 1818); MENGE, Ueber die Vorgesch. der Insel Rhodus (Cologne, 1827): ROTTIERS, Description des monuments de Rhodes (Brussels, 1828); ROSS, Reisen auf den griech. Inseln, III, 70-113; IDEM, Reisen nach Kos, Halikarnassos, Rhodos (Stuttgart, 1840); BERG, Die Insel Rhodos (Brunswick, 1860); SCHNEIDERWIRTH, Gesch. der Insel Rhodos (Heiligenstadt. 1868); GUÉRIN, L’île de Rhodes (Paris, 1880); BILLIOTI AND COTTERET, L’île de Rhodes (Paris, 1891); BECKER, De Rhodiorum primordiis (Leipzig, 1882); TORR, Rhodes in Ancient Times (Cambridge, 1885); IDEM, Rhodes in Modern Times (Cambridge, 1887); SCHUMACHER, De Republica Rhodiorum commentatio (Heidelberg, 1886); VON GELDER, Gesch. der alten Rhodier (La Haye, 1900); SMITH, Dict. of Greek and Roman Geogr., s. v.; FILLION in VIGOUROUX, Dict. de la Bible, s. v.; Missiones catholicae (Rome, 1907).
S. VAILHÉ Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Rhodes
( , rosy), an island in the Mediterranean, near the coast of Asia Minor, celebrated from the remotest antiquity as the seat of commerce, navigation, literature and the arts, but now reduced to a state of abject poverty by the devastations of war and the tyranny and rapacity of its Turkish rulers.
I. Scriptural Notices. The Sept. translators place the Rhodians among the children of Javan (Gen 10:4), and in this they are followed by Eusebius, Jerome, and Isidore; but Bochart maintains that the Rhodians are too modern to have been planted there by any immediate son of Javan, and considers that Moses rather intended the Gauls on the Mediterranean towards the mouth of the Rhone, near Marseilles, where there was a district called Rhodanusia, and a city of the same name. They also render Eze 27:15, children of the Rhodians, instead of, as in the Hebrew, children of Dedan Calmet considers it probable that here they read children of Redan, or Rodan, but that in Gen 10:4 they read Dedan, as in the Hebrew. In the time of the consolidation of the Roman power in the Levant we have a notice of Jewish residents in Rhodes (1Ma 15:23). Paul touched there on his return voyage to Syria from the third missionary journey (Act 21:1). It does not appear that he landed from the ship. The day before he had been at Cos, an island to the northwest; and from Rhodes he proceeded eastwards to Patara, in Lycia. It seems, from all the circumstances of the narrative, that the wind was blowing from the northwest, as it very often does in that part of the Levant. Two incidents in the life of Herod the Great connected with Rhodes are well worthy of mention here. When he went to Italy, about the close of the last republican struggle, he found that the city had suffered much from Cassius, and gave liberal sums to restore it (Josephus, Ant. 14, 4, 3). Here, also, after the battle of Actium, he met Augustus and secured his favor (ibid. 15, 6, 6).
II. History. Rhodes was an ancient Dorian settlement made, probably, soon after the conquest of Peloponnesus; but in process of time the different races became fused together and were distinguished for commercial enterprise. They built the superb city of Rhodes at the northern extremity of the island, and thus took advantage of the magnificent harbor which the earlier settlers had overlooked. After this it prospered greatly and passed through various fortunes in a political respect, becoming for a time connected with the Carian dynasty, then with the Persian empire, and at a later period it became famous for a memorable siege it sustained against the arms of Demetrius Poliorcetes, from whom it obtained honorable terms of peace. The citizens now set themselves to clear the Aegean Sea of pirates, an enterprise in which they completely succeeded; and it was to their exertions that merchants owed the safety of their ships and the possibility of extending their commerce. The mercantile tastes and honorable character of this people procured them the goodwill of all the civilized world. They possessed in perfection those virtues in which the rest of the Greeks were so lamentably deficient. They were upright, conscientious, and prudent. While they cultivated trade they did not neglect science, literature, and art; and, though the time of their prosperity was subsequent to the decline of the intellectual supremacy of Greece, the Rhodian era was a long and a happy one. The people formed an alliance with Rome, and maintained throughout the Roman period their independence; and, while they faithfully kept every article of their treaties, they avoided anything like servility. In the time of Antoninus Pius Rhodes was not only free itself, but extended the advantages of its free constitution to many of the surrounding islands and a considerable district in Caria on the opposite coast. Nor was Rhodes by any means despicable in literary reputation. Cleobulus, reckoned among the seven sages, was a Rhodian; Callimachus and Apollonius were eminent as poets; and eloquence was understood and cherished in Rhodes when it was all but extinct in every other part of Greece. Cicero went to study here, and the young Roman nobles made Rhodes their university as they had formerly done with Athens. Under Constantine it was the metropolis of the Province of the Islands. It was the last place where the Christians of the East held out against the advancing Saracens; and subsequently it was once more famous as the home and fortress of the Knights of St. John. The most prominent remains of the city and harbor are memorials of those knights.
In modern times Rhodes has been chiefly celebrated as one of the last retreats of this military order, under whom it obtained great celebrity by its heroic resistance to the Turks; but in the time of Soliman the Great a capitulation was agreed upon and the island was finally surrendered to the Turks, under whom it has since continued. It is now governed by a Turkish pasha, who exercises despotic sway, seizes upon the property of the people at his pleasure, and from whose vigilant rapacity scarcely anything can be concealed. Under this iron rule the inhabitants are ground to poverty and the island is becoming rapidly depopulated.
III. Description and Remains. Rhodes is immediately opposite the high Carian and Lycian headlands at the southwest extremity of the peninsula of Asia Minor. It is of a triangular form, about forty-four leagues in circumference, twenty leagues long from north to south, and about six broad. In the center is a lofty mountain named Artemira, which commands a view of the whole island; of the elevated coast of Carmania, on the north; the archipelago, studded with numerous islands, on the northwest; Mount Ida, veiled in clouds, on the southwest; and the wide expanse of waters that wash the shores of Africa on the south and southeast. It was famed in ancient times and is still celebrated for its delightful climate and the fertility of its soil. The gardens are filled with delicious fruit, every gale is scented with the most powerful fragrance wafted from the groves of orange and citron trees, and the numberless aromatic herbs exhale such a profusion of the richest odors that the whole atmosphere seems impregnated with spicy perfume. It is well watered by the river Candura and numerous smaller streams and rivulets that spring from the shady sides of Mount Artemira. It contains two cities Rhodes, the capital, inhabited chiefly by Turks and a small number of Jews; and the ancient Lindus, now reduced to a hamlet, peopled by Greeks who are almost all engaged in commerce. Besides these there are five villages occupied by Turks and a small number of Jews, and five towns and forty-one villages inhabited by Greeks. The whole population was estimated by Savary at 36,500; but Turner, a later traveler, estimates them only at 20,000, of whom 14,000 were Greeks and 6000 Turks, with a small mixture of Jews residing chiefly in the capital.
The city of Rhodes is famous for its huge brazen statue of Apollo, called Colossus, which stood at the mouth of the harbor, and was so high that ships passed in full sail between its legs. It was the work of Chares of Lindus, the disciple of Lysippus; its height was one hundred and twenty-six feet, and twelve years were occupied in its construction. It was thrown down by an earthquake in the reign of Ptolemy III, Euergetes, king of Egypt, after having stood fifty-six years. The brass of which it was composed was a load for nine hundred camels. Its extremities were sustained by sixty pillars of marble, and a winding staircase led up to the top, whence a view might be obtained of Syria and the ships proceeding to Egypt in a large looking glass suspended to the neck of the statue. There is not a single vestige of this celebrated work of art now remaining. The present antiquities of Rhodes reach no further back than the residence of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The remains of their fine old fortress, of great size and strength, are still to be seen. The cells of the Knights are entire, but the sanctuary has been converted by the Turks into a magazine for military stores. The early coins of Rhodes bear the conventional rose flower, with the name of the island, on one side, and the head of Apollo, radiated like the sun, on the other. It was a proverb that the sun shone every day in Rhodes.
See Meursius, De Rhodo (Amst. 1675); Coronelli, Isola di Rodi (Ven. 1702); Paulsen, Descriptio Rhodi (Gott. 1818); Rost, Rhodus (Alton. 1823); Menge, Vorgeschichte von Rhodus (Cologne, 1827); and especially Rottier, Les Monuments de Rhodes (Brussels, 1828); Ross, Reisen nach Rhodos (Halle, 1852); Berg, Die Insel Rhodus (Brunswick, 1861).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Rhodes
a rose, an island to the south of the western extremity of Asia Minor, between Coos and Patara, about 46 miles long and 18 miles broad. Here the apostle probably landed on his way from Greece to Syria (Acts 21:1), on returning from his third missionary journey.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Rhodes
A large island of the Aegean sea, mentioned in Paul’s third missionary journey to Jerusalem; he passed it apparently without landing (Act 21:1). The day before he was at Cos, an island on the N.W. From Rhodes he went eastward to Patara in Lycia. The wind was probably, as often in the Levant, blowing from N.W. S.W. of Asia Minor, having Caria to the N. and Lycia to the E. The people were honorable, upright, and prudent; famed for mercantile pursuits. Its temple to the sun, and the colossus, a statue of Apollo, 105 ft. high, executed by Chares of Lindos, a native artist, 288 B.C. were famous. The coins bear on the obverse the head of Apollo as the sun (the proverb said the sun shone every day on Rhodes), on the reverse the rose from which Rhodes takes its name. The capital is at the N.E. of the island. It was the last spot where the Christians of the East held out against the advancing Saracens, and was subsequently noted as the home and fortress of the knights of John.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Rhodes
RHODES was one of the most important and successful cities in ancient Greece. It was founded in b.c. 408, at the N.E. corner of the island of the same name, which is 43 miles long and 20 miles wide at its widest. The situation was admirable, and the people were able to take advantage of it and to build up a splendid position in the world of commerce. It reached the summit of its success in the 2nd cent. b.c., after the settlement with Rome in 189 made it mistress of great part of Caria and Lycia. Romes trade interests were seriously interfered with by this powerful rival, and in b.c. 166 Rome declared the Carian and Lycian cities independent, and made Delos a free port. Its conspicuous loyalty to Rome during the first Mithradatic War was rewarded by the recovery of part of its former Carian possessions. It took the side of Csar in the civil war, although most of the East supported Pompey, and suffered successive misfortunes, which reduced it to a common provincial town, though it remained a free city in St. Pauls time, and retained its fine harbours, walls, streets, and stores. St. Paul touched here on his way from Troas to Csarea (Act 21:1), as it was a regular port of call on that route. Rhodes is mentioned in 1Ma 15:23 as one of the free States to which the Romans sent letters in favour of the Jews. Eze 27:15, according to the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , reads sons of the Rhodians: this is an error; the mention of them in Gen 10:4 (LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ) and 1Ch 1:7 (LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ) is probably correct. The famous Colossus was a statue of the sun-god at the harbour entrance, 105 feet high. It stood only from b.c. 280 to 224.
A. Souter.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Rhodes
rodz (, Rhodos): An island (and city) in the Aegean Sea, West of Caria, rough and rocky in parts, but well watered and productive, though at present not extensively cultivated. Almost one-third of the island is now covered with trees in spite of earlier deforestation. The highest mountains attain an altitude of nearly 4,000 ft. The older names were Ophiusa, Asteria, Trinacria, Corymbia. The capital in antiquity was Rhodes, at the northeastern extremity, a strongly fortitled city provided with a double harbor. Near the entrance of the harbor stood one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – a colossal bronze statue dedicated to Helios. Tiffs colossus, made by Chares about 290 BC, at a cost of 300 talents ($300,000 in 1915), towered to the height of 104 ft.
In the popular mind – both before and after Shakespeare represented Caesar as bestriding the world like a colossus – this gigantic figure is conceived as an image of a human being of monstrous size with leas spread wide apart, at the entrance of the inner harbor, so huge that the largest ship with sails spread could move in under it; but the account on which this conception is based seems to have no foundation.
The statue was destroyed in 223 BC by an earthquake. It was restored by the Romans. In 672 AD the Saracens sold the ruins to a Jew. The quantity of metal was so areat that it would fill the cars of a modern freight train (900 camel loads).
The most ancient cities of Rhodes were Ialysus, Ochyroma, and Lindus. The oldest inhabitants were immigrants from Crete. Later came the Carians. But no real advance in civilization was made before the immigration of the Dorians under Tlepolemus, one of the Heraclidae, and (after the Trojan war) Aethaemanes. Lindus, Ialysus and Camirus formed with Cos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus the so-called Dorian Hexapolis (Six Cities), the center of which was the temple of the Triopian Apollo on the coast of Caria. Rhodes now founded many colonies – in Spain (Rhode), in Italy (Parthenope, Salapia, Sirus, Sybaris), in Sicily (Gela), in Asia Minor (Soli), in Cilicia (Gaaae), and in Lycia (Corydalla). The island attained no political greatness until the three chief cities formed a confederation and rounded the new capital (Rhodes) in 408 BC. In the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, Rhodes sided with the Athenians, but, after 19 years of loyalty to Athens, went over to the Spartans (412 BC). In 394, when Conon appeared with his fleet before the city, the island fell into the hands of the Athenians again. A garrison was stationed at Rhodes by Alexander the Great. After his death this garrison was driven out by the Rhodians. It is at this time that the really great period of the island’s history begins. The inhabitants bravely defended their capital against Demetrius Poliorcetes in 304 BC – the same Demetrius who two years before had won a naval victory and had coins stamped with a Victory that is the counterpart of the Winaed Victory which commands the unbounded admiration of the modern world – and extended their dominion over a strip of the Carian coast, as well as over several of the neiahboring islands, and for the first time in the history of the world established an international maritime and commercial law. The arts and sciences now began to flourish in the fair island in the southeastern Aegean. Aeschines, the famous orator of Athens, fled to Rhodes after his defeat by Demosthenes, and rounded a school of oratory, which was attended by many Romans. Rhodes became the faithful ally of Rome after the defeat of Antiochus in 189 BC. As a reward for her loyalty she received Caria. In 168, however, only a small portion of this territory remained under Rhodian sway (Peraea, or the Chersonesus). In 42 BC the island was devastated by Cassius. Later it was made a part of the Roman province of Asia (44 AD). Strabo says that he knows no city so splendid in harbor, walls and streets. When the Roman power declined, Rhodes fell into the hands of Caliph Moawijah, but later was taken by the Greeks, from whom at a later date the Genoese wrested the island. In 1249 John Cantacuzenus attempted to recover Rhodes, but in vain. Finally, however, success crowned the efforts of the Greeks under Theodoros Protosebastos. In 1310 the Knights of John, who had been driven from Palestine, made Rhodes their home. After the subjuaation of the island by Sultan Soliman in 1522 the Knights of John removed to Malta, and Rhodes has remained uninterruptedly a possession of the Sublime Porte down to the recent war between Turkey and the Balkan allies, forming, with the other islands, the province of the Islands of the White Sea (Archipelago). It has a Christian governor whose seat, though mostly at Rhodes, is sometimes at Chios. The population of the island has greatly diminished by emigration. In 1890 the total number of inhabitants was 30,000 (20,000 Greeks, 7,000 Mohammedans, 1,500 Jews). The chief products of Rhodes are wheat, oil, wine, figs and tropical fruits. A very important industry is the exportation of sponges. The purity of the air and the mildness of the climate make Rhodes a most delightful place to live in during the fall, winter and early spring. The city, built in the shape of an amphitheater, has a magnificent view toward the sea. It contains several churches made out of old mosques. The once famous harbor is now almost filled with sand. The inhabitants number nearly 12,000 (all Turks and Jews). Rhodes is mentioned in the New Testament only as a point where Paul touched on his voyage southward from the Hellespont to Caesarea (Act 21:1); but in 1 Macc 15:23 we are informed that it was one of the states to which the Romans sent letters in behalf of the Jews.
Literature.
Berg, Die Insel Rhodes (Braunschweig, 1860-62): Schneiderwirth, Geschichte der Insel Rhodes (Heiligenstadt, 1868); Guerin, L’ile de Rhodes, 2nd edition, Paris, 1880; Biliotti and Cottrel, L’ile de Rhodes (Paris, 1881); Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times (Cambridge, 1885) and Rhodes in Modern Times (1887).
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Rhodes
Rhodes, an island in the Mediterranean, near the coast of Asia Minor, celebrated from the remotest antiquity as the seat of commerce, navigation, literature, and the arts, but now reduced to a state of abject poverty by the devastations of war and the tyranny and rapacity of its Turkish rulers. It is of a triangular form, about forty-four leagues in circumference, twenty leagues long from north to south, and about six broad. It was famed in ancient times, and is still celebrated, for its delightful climate and the fertility of its soil. It contains two citiesRhodes, the capital, inhabited chiefly by Turks, and a small number of Jews; and the ancient Lindus, now reduced to a hamlet, peopled by Greeks, who are almost all engaged in commerce. Besides these there are five villages occupied by Turks and a small number of Jews; and five towns and forty-one villages inhabited by Greeks. The whole population is estimated at 20,000. The city of Rhodes is famous for its huge brazen statue of Apollo, called Colossus, which stood at the mouth of the harbor, and was so high that ships passed in full sail between its legs. There is not a single vestige of this celebrated work of art now remaining. St. Paul appears to have visited Rhodes while on his journey to Jerusalem, A.D. 58 (Act 21:1).
The antiquities of Rhodes reach no farther back than the residence of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The remains of their fine old fortress, of great size and strength, are still to be seen. In modern times Rhodes has been chiefly celebrated as one of the last retreats of this military order, under whom it obtained great celebrity by its heroic resistance to the Turks; but in the time of Solyman the Great a capitulation was agreed upon, and the island was finally surrendered to the Turks, under whom it has since continued.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Rhodes
An island lying near the S.W. corner of Asia Minor. Act 21:1. It was at one time a place of great renown. It still bears the same name.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Rhodes
An island visited by Paul.
Act 21:1
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Rhodes
Rhodes (rdz), a rose. A noted island in the Mediterranean, 13 miles from the coast of Asia Minor. Paul visited it on his return from his third missionary journey. Act 21:1. He might have there seen fragments of the greatest of the Seven Wonders of the worldthe famous Colossus of Rhodes. This was made of brass, and was 105 feet high. It stood at the right of the port as vessels entered, and not astride the channel, as so generally represented in pictures. It was erected b.c. 290, and overthrown by an earthquake b.c. 224. The modern city Is a place of considerable trade.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Rhodes
Rhodes. (rosy). A celebrated island in the Mediterranean Sea. (It is triangular in form, 60 miles long from north to south, and about 18 wide. It is noted now, as in ancient times, for its delightful climate and the fertility of its soil. The city of Rhodes, its capital, was famous for its huge brazen statue of Apollo, called the Colossus of Rhodes. It stood at the entrance of the harbor, and was so large that ships in full sail could pass between its legs. — Editor).
Rhodes is immediately opposite the high Carian and Lycian headlands, at the southwest extremity of the peninsula of Asia Minor. Its position had much to do with its history. Its real eminence began about 400 B.C. with the founding of the city of Rhodes, at the northeast extremity of the island, which still continues to be the capital. After Alexander’s death, it entered on a glorious period, its material prosperity being largely developed, and its institutions deserving and obtaining general esteem. We have notice of the Jewish residents in Rhodes in 1Ma 15:23.
The Romans, after the defeat of Antiochus, assigned, during some time, to Rhodes, certain districts on the mainland. Its Byzantine history is again eminent. Under Constantine, it was the metropolis of the “Province of the Islands;” it was the last place where the Christians of the East held out against the advancing Seracens; and subsequently, it was once more famous as the home and fortress of the Knights of St. John. (It is now reduced to abject poverty. There are two cities — Rhodes, the capital and Lindus — and forty or fifty villages. The population, according to Turner is 20,000, of whom 6000 are Turks and the rest Greeks, together with a few Jews).
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Rhodes
an island lying south of the province of Caria, in Lesser Asia, and, among the Asiatic islands, is accounted for dignity next to Cyprus and Lesbos. It is pleasant and healthful, and was anciently celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants in navigation, but most, for its prodigious statue of brass consecrated to the sun, and called the Colossus. This statue was seventy cubits high, and bestrode the mouth of the harbour, so that ships could sail between its legs, and it was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world. St. Paul, on his way to Jerusalem, A.D. 58, went from Miletus to Coos, from Coos to Rhodes, and from thence to Patara, in Lycia, Act 21:1.