“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men
walk under his huge legs and peep about
to find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

What does Colossus mean in Julius Caesar?

In these lines, an envious Cassius compares the ascendant Caesar to the Colossus of Rhodes, an ancient statue of the god Helios that was believed to have straddled an entire harbor so that ships could pass through its legs; next to such a giant, says Cassius, he and Brutus are just tiny, insignificant men.