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In the 8th century, a famous epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede celebrated the symbolic significance of the statue in a prophecy that is variously quoted : Quamdiu stat Colisæus, stat et Roma, quando cadet colisæus, cadet et Roma, quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus ("as long as the Colossus stands, so shall Rome, when the Colossus falls, Rome shall fall, when Rome falls, so falls the world").

This is often mistranslated to refer to the Colosseum rather than the Colossus (as in, for instance, Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage).

However, at the time that the Pseudo-Bede wrote, the masculine noun coliseus was applied to the statue rather than to what was still known as the Flavian amphitheatre.

The Colossus did eventually fall, possibly being pulled down to reuse its bronze.