LAOCOON

According to the post-Homeric story, a priest of Apollo. He had displeased that god by marrying against his wishes; and, when the Greeks had departed for a time from Troy, leaving the wooden horse behind them, be again offended, by serving as a priest on the occasion of the sacrifice offered to Poseidon. Accordingly, in the midst of the sacrificial feast, the god sent two serpents who strangled Laocoon and one of his sons. In Vergil's account [Aen. ii 230] Laocoon draws down upon himself the wrath of Athena, not only for warning the Trojans against the guile of the Greeks, but for piercing with a spear the flank of the horse dedicated to the goddess. Whilst he was sacrificing to Poseidon on the beach, Athena caused two snakes to emerge from the sea and strangle the father and both of his sons. This incident has been represented in the famous group of sculpture (see cut), the work of the Rhodian artists Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, which was found in 1506 amid the ruins of the house of the emperor Titus at Rome. It is now in the Belvedere court of the Vatican Museum. (Comp. SCULPTURE.)