Construction
Chares of Lindos completes the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is about the height of the modern Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor -- between 27 and 37 m (90 and 120 ft) and is built from brass plates each a couple of cm (about an in.) thick attached to an iron framework supported by stone columns. The work is done in stages from a growing mound of earth so that the workers are always at the level of their work. Afterward, the mound is removed to reveal the completed statue. See also 224 bce Construction.
Roman consul Manius Curius Dentatus [d. 270 bce], conqueror of the Sabines, orders the marshes at Sabine Rieti drained by means of a 800-m (2624-ft) canal partly cut in rock and routed so that it forms a dramatic waterfall into the river Nera.
TransportationUnder Ptolemy II, the canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea is either completed or reopened. It had been begun by Pharaoh Necho about 300 years earlier and either completed or almost done so by Darius the Persian (who, according to Diodorus Siculus stopped short of finishing it because he feared that a higher Red Sea would flood the Mediterranean; Ptolemy installed a dam that prevented any such flooding). See also 500 bce Transportation; 100 ce Transportation.
