Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/147

Rh disposed, he says, as if for the express purpose of receiving the ships of Ionia, Caria, Cyprus, and Egypt. Towering above these harbours stood the famous bronze Colossus, which from its position on the shore was probably intended to serve as a sea mark and a lighthouse. So vast a surface of polished metal reflecting the bright sky of Rhodes must have been visible from a great distance at sea, and must have been to the Rhodian mariner an object as familiar as the statue of Athene Promaehos was to those who sailed past the Attic Sunium.”

During the ages of her early civilization the hardy population of Rhodes furnished a constant supply of seamen, who in the pursuit of commerce were to be met with at every point in the Mediterranean, and whose skill and energy raised the reputation of their island to a very high pitch amongst the commonwealths of Europe. When in later years Rhodes fell under the control of the effete empire of Constantinople, it gradually beeame inoculated with the same vices and the same decay which were slowly but steadily effecting the overthrow of the mother country. At the time when the knights raised their banner in the island its inhabitants had lost all that energy and strength of character which of old distinguished them, and had bowed in abject submission under the yoke of the Saracen pirates whom they had received within their ports.

Villaret’s first act, after having secured possession of the town was to embark on board the fleet, with a large portion of his forces, for the purpose of visiting the various small islands in the vicinity. By this means he speedily enforced submission to his authority in the islands of Nisyrus, Leros, Calamos, Episeopia or Telos, Calchos, Symia, and Cos, in none of which did he meet with any serious opposition. At Cos he determined to establish as soon as possible a subsidiary fortress, perceiving its importance as a point of support. Having completed these precautionary measures for the protection of his new acquisition, Villaret returned to Rhodes in order to take the necessary steps to establish his convent there. Prom the time of the first landing of the Hospitallers until their final settlement in undisputed sovereignty over that and the neighbouring islands, a period of nearly four years had elapsed, the whole of which had been passed in