Minor and Syria, who poured his fleets and his armies upon them, and what is still more, employed against them all the strength of his talent; they resisted him so boldly and so gloriously, that he was obliged to grant them an honourable peace. Rhodes, however, suffered severely on that occasion, and the whole island was fearfully ravaged; but it soon recovered; and, owing to the great confidence which it inspired, and to the obligation which the Egyptian king Ptolemy incurred towards it, the island rose so much in the esteem and respect of all, that, comparatively speaking, it stood as high as Athens did after the Persian wars. From this time, Rhodes, notwithstanding the general confusion, became powerful and respected, not through good fortune, but through the industry and exertions of its inhabitants. It was they who destroyed the Etruscan pirates, and their squadrons sailed as far as the Aegean, securing the freedom of navigation for the good of all Greece. As commerce increased more and more at Alexandria, and as Egypt was not a country fit for shipbuilding, the Rhodians became the freighters for the greater part of the ancient world. Such nations are universal benefactors, and all are concerned in the preservation of their navigation. This accounts for the fact, that at the time when Rhodes suffered from inundations and earthquakes, nations and princes vied with one another in helping and benefitting them. For the good luck which favoured Rhodes did not remain unmixed, for it had to sustain many serious calamities. The city was built in the form of a theatre, but in such a manner that towards the harbour it was protected by a lofty and strong wall. Once during the Macedonian period, when a heavy fall of rain had inundated nearly the whole city, the swollen streams poured down upon it, without finding an outlet into the sea, until in the end they fortunately threw down the mighty wall, and thus ran off. This is one of the most fearful events in Greek history, and was the consequence of an earthquake. The earthquakes by which Rhodes has been visited have been terrible. About the end of Olymp. 138, or at the beginning of Olymp. 139, in the reign of Euergetes, it was almost wholly destroyed by an earthquake, during which the Colossus was overthrown, which was never set up again. In the time of Antoninus Pius, the city was visited by the earthquake, which reduced nearly all the towns on the Asiatic coast to heaps of ruins, and in which Rhodes lost its last splendour, its whole fleet, its arsenals, its trophies and monuments: on that occasion it was thoroughly destroyed. It was then, of course, not restored to what it had been; its navigation henceforth was insignificant, and agriculture formed the principal occupation of its inhabitants.