DID EVER ROME HAD A COLOSSAL STATUE?

Yes, Rome had a colossal statue that was high 100 feet and this statue represented the emperor Nero as Helios and had a crown of sun rays over his head. The Colossal statue of Nero is linked to the terrible fire that burned 80% of Rome in 64 AD. Some Latin sources say that it was Nero that commissioned the fire in order to rebuild Rome more splendid and looking as the Greek cities; some others said that Nero blamed the Christians for the fire. Recentsreexaminations of the sources prefer to argue that the fire of 64 AD burst from one of the wooden shops located in the bottom arcades of the Circus Maximus. We have also to remember that a big part of Rome at Nero's time was still in wood and the houses had no firewalls and had the last storey on wood.This said,with the rubble from the fire, Nero decided to build his own new residence in the valley that is between the Palatine and the Esquiline and in doing so, he decided to enhance the richness of his new mansion with a lake and a colossal statue that showed himself as new enlightened ruler. The bronzed statue of Nero was then called " Colossus" because it was similar to the Colossus of Rhodes (now lost) and in the early medieval art marked the area of the Colosseum.The Colossal statue of Nero suffered a partial damnatio memoriae: at his death, the Senate decreed to remove any facial similarity with the emperor; the statue survived until the end of the Roman empire as a generic colossal statue dedicated to the Sun- Helios, as the attached picture shows.