Bronze bull from the 7th century B.C., exhibit of the museum in Olympia
In antiquity, bulls played an outstanding role as sacrifices, as forms of the gods - Dionysos, Poseidon, the river god Acheloos - or simply in the cult of animals, here we should only remember the tauroctonics in the Mithras cult. Zeus often approached his many lovers in animal form, for example Europe, which he abducted to Crete in the shape of a white bull.
The bronze casting
with lost as well as with reusable form for small bronzes in full casting has led to highest development in Greece since the geometric time in the 8th century BC. Hollow casting has been used on large sculptures since the 6th century B.C. It was attributed by the Greeks to the ore founders Rhoikos and Theodoros from Samos.
Places such as Olympia, Delos, Delphi, Corinth, Athens, Rhodes each had over 3,000 large bronze statues. Particularly impressive works were the colossal statues such as the Seven Wonders of the World colossus of Rhodes, created in 285 BC by Chares of Lindos, with an inner scaffold of iron and masonry, height 37 m. Another 2 m taller was the bronze colossus commissioned by Nero to represent the emperor. Hadrian had it taken to the Flavium amphitheatre, which is why this entertainment centre still bears his name today:
Colosseum.
