LAOCOON`S AGONY The famous group of the Trojan priest

LAOCOON’S AGONY The famous group of the
Trojan priest Laocoon and his sons was unearthed
in Rome in 1506 in the presence of the great Italian
Renaissance artist Michelangelo.
The marble
group, long believed an original of the second
century BCE, was found in the remains of the
palace of the emperor Titus (r. 79-81 CE), exactly
where Pliny had seen it more than 14 centuries
before. Pliny attributed the statue to three sculptors
– ATHANADOROS, HAGESANDROS, AND
POLYDOROS OF RHODES – who are now
generally thought to have worked in the early first
century CE. They probably based their group on a
Hellenistic masterpiece depicting Laocoon and only
one son. Their variation on the original added the
son at Laocoon’s left (note the greater
compositional integration of the two other figures)
to conform with the Roman poet Vergil’s account in
the Aeneid. Vergil vividly described the strangling
of Laocoon and his two sons by sea serpents while
sacrificing at an altar. The gods who favored the
Greeks in the war against Troy had sent the serpents
to punish Laocoon, who had tried to warn his
compatriots about the danger of bringing the
Greeks’ wooden horse within the walls of their city.
In Vergil’s graphic account, Laocoon
suffered in terrible agony, and the torment of the
priest and his sons is communicated in a spectacular
fashion in the marble group. The three Trojans
writhe in pain as they struggle to free themselves
from the death grip of the serpents. The serpententwined figures recall the suffering giants of the
great frieze of the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, and
Laocoon himself is strikingly similar to Alkyoneos,
Athena’s opponent. In fact, many scholar believe
that a Pergamene statuary group of the second
century BCE was the inspiration for the three
Rhodian sculptors.
ATHANADOROS, HAGESANDROS, and POLYDOROS
OF RHODES, Laocoon and his Sons, from Rome, Italy, early
first century CE. Marble, approx.. 7’10” high. Vatican
Museums, Rome.
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from The Aeneid Part II - VIrgil
Laocoön, chosen by lot as priest of Neptune,
was sacrificing a huge bull at the customary altar.
See, a pair of serpents with huge coils, snaking over the sea
from Tenedos through the tranquil deep (I shudder to tell it),
and heading for the shore side by side: their fronts lift high
over the tide, and their blood-red crests top the waves,
the rest of their body slides through the ocean behind,
and their huge backs arch in voluminous folds.
There’s a roar from the foaming sea: now they reach the shore,
and with burning eyes suffused with blood and fire,
lick at their hissing jaws with flickering tongues.
Blanching at the sight we scatter. They move
on a set course towards Laocoön: and first each serpent
entwines the slender bodies of his two sons,
and biting at them, devours their wretched limbs:
then as he comes to their aid, weapons in hand, they
seize him too,
and wreathe him in massive coils: now encircling his
waist twice,
twice winding their scaly folds around his throat,
their high necks and heads tower above him.
He strains to burst the knots with his hands,
his sacred headband drenched in blood and dark venom,
while he sends terrible shouts up to the heavens,
like the bellowing of a bull that has fled wounded,
from the altar, shaking the useless axe from its neck.
But the serpent pair escape, slithering away to the high temple,
and seek the stronghold of fierce Pallas, to hide there
under the goddess’s feet, and the circle of her shield.