Laocoon

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Lāocŏon, Trojan prince, brother of Anchisēs; for his story see TROJAN HORSE. Laocoon is best known through his depiction with his two sons in a statuary group (Vatican Museums) carved by three sculptors from Rhodes—Hagesandros, Athanodoros, and Polydoros—probably in the first century AD. In Rome, it was seen by the Elder Pliny, who ranked it as the greatest work of art in the world; his description enabled it to be recognized when it was found in the ruins on the Esquiline hill (possibly from Nero's Golden House) in 1506. The German critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing made this sculpture the basis of his book Laokoon (1766) analysing the different potentialities and limitations of poetry and the visual arts.

In classical mythology, Laocoon was a priest in Troy during the Trojan War. When the Trojans discovered the Trojan horse outside their gates, Laocoon warned against bringing it into the city, remarking, “I am wary of Greeks even when they are bringing gifts.” (See “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”) The god Poseidon, who favored the Greeks, then sent two enormous snakes after Laocoon. The creatures coiled themselves around the priest and his two sons, crushing them to death. Some sources say Athena sent the snakes.

n.

A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.