Laocoön
Encyclopedia
Acoetes
Acoetes was the name of two men in Greek and Roman mythology. The first Acoetes is known for helping the god Bacchus. Another, lesser-known Acoetes was father to Laocoon, who warned about the Trojan Horse.-Bacchic myth:...
is a figure in Greek
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
and Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
.
History
Laocoön is a TrojanTroy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
of Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
(or Neptune
Neptune (mythology)
Neptune was the god of water and the sea in Roman mythology and religion. He is analogous with, but not identical to, the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto, each of them presiding over one of the three realms of the universe,...
), whose rules he had defied, either by marrying and having sons, or by having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
in a sanctuary. His minor role in the Epic Cycle narrating the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
was of warning the Trojans in vain against accepting the Trojan Horse
Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the conflict. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside...
from the Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
—"A deadly fraud is this," he said, "devised by the Achaean chiefs!"—and for his subsequent divine execution by two serpents sent to Troy across the sea from the island of Tenedos
Tenedos
Tenedos or Bozcaada or Bozdja-Ada is a small island in the Aegean Sea, part of the Bozcaada district of Çanakkale province in Turkey. , Tenedos has a population of about 2,354. The main industries are tourism, wine production and fishing...
, where the Greeks had temporarily camped.
Laocoön warned his fellow Trojans against the wooden horse presented to the city by the Greeks. In the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
, Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
gives Laocoön the famous line Equo ne credite, Teucri / Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentēs is a Latin phrase from Virgil's Aeneid . It has been paraphrased in English as the aphorism "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts", though its literal meaning, "I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts", carries a somewhat different nuance to the usual English...
, or "Do not trust the Horse, Trojans / Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts." This line is the source of the saying: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
Death
The most detailed description of Laocoön's grisly fate was provided by Quintus SmyrnaeusQuintus Smyrnaeus
Quintus Smyrnaeus, also known as Kointos Smyrnaios , was a Greek epic poet whose Posthomerica, following "after Homer" continues the narration of the Trojan War....
in Posthomerica
Posthomerica
The Posthomerica is an epic poem by Quintus of Smyrna, probably written in the latter half of the 4th century, and telling the story of the Trojan War, between the death of Hector and the fall of Ilium....
, a later, literary version of events following the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
. According to Quintus, Laocoön begged the Trojans to set fire to the horse to ensure it was not a trick. Athena, angry with him and the Trojans, shook the ground around Laocoön's feet and painfully blinded him. The Trojans, watching this unfold, assumed Laocoön was punished for The Trojans' mutilating and doubting Sinon
Sinon
In Greek mythology, Sinon a son of Aesimus , or of the crafty Sisyphus, was a Greek warrior during the Trojan War...
, the undercover Greek soldier sent to convince the Trojans to let him and the horse inside their city walls. Thus, the Trojans wheeled the great wooden Horse in. Laocoön did not give up trying to convince the Trojans to burn the horse, and Athena makes him pay even further. She sends two giant serpents to strangle and kill his two sons.
According to Apollodorus
Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)
The Bibliotheca , in three books, provides a comprehensive summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, "the most valuable mythographical work that has come down from ancient times," Aubrey Diller observed, whose "stultifying purpose" was neatly expressed in the epigram noted by...
it was Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
who sent the two serpents. Laocoön had insulted Apollo by sleeping with his wife in front of the "divine image". Virgil employed the motif in the Aeneid. The Trojans, according to Virgil, disregarded Laocoön's advice and were taken in by the deceitful testimony of Sinon; in his resulting anger, Laocoön threw his spear at the Horse. Minerva, who was supporting the Greeks, at this moment sent sea-serpents to strangle Laocoön and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus. "Laocoön, ostensibly sacrificing a bull to Neptune on behalf of the city (lines 201ff.), becomes himself the tragic victim, as the simile (lines 223–24) makes clear. In some sense, his death must be symbolic of the city as a whole," S. V. Tracy notes. According to the Hellenistic poet Euphorion of Chalcis
Euphorion of Chalcis
Euphorion, Greek poet and grammarian, born at Chalcis in Euboea about 275 BC.Euphorion spent much of his life in Athens, where he amassed great wealth. After studying philosophy with Lacydes and Prytanis, he became the student and eromenos of the poet Archeboulus. About 221 he was invited by...
, Laocoön is in fact punished for procreating upon holy ground sacred to Poseidon; only unlucky timing caused the Trojans to misinterpret his death as punishment for striking the Horse, which they bring into the city with disastrous consequences. The episode furnished the subject of Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
' lost tragedy, Laocoön.
In Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
Virgil describes the circumstances of Laocoön's death:
- From the AeneidAeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
- Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos
- perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno,
- clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit:
- qualis mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
- taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim.
- Literal English translation:
- At the same time he stretched forth to tear the knots with his hands
- his fillets soaked with saliva and black venom
- at the same time he lifted to heaven horrendous cries:
- like the bellowing when a wounded bull has fled from the altar
- and has shaken the ill-aimed axe from its neck.
- John DrydenJohn DrydenJohn Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
's translation:
- With both his hands he labors at the knots;
- His holy fillets the blue venom blots;
- His roaring fills the flitting air around.
- Thus, when an ox receives a glancing wound,
- He breaks his bands, the fatal altar flies,
- And with loud bellowings breaks the yielding skies.
The death of Laocoön was famously depicted in a much-admired marble Laocoön and his Sons
Laocoön and his Sons
The statue of Laocoön and His Sons , also called the Laocoön Group, is a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The statue is attributed by the Roman author Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus...
, attributed by Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
to the Rhodian
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
sculptors Agesander, Athenodoros
Athenodoros
Athenodoros or Athenodorus was the name of several figures in the ancient world:* Athenodorus of Soli , a Stoic philosopher and disciple of Zenon* Athenodoros Cananites , a Stoic philosopher of the 1st Century BCE...
, and Polydorus
Polydorus
In Greek mythology, Polydorus referred to several different people.*An Argive, son of Hippomedon...
, which stands in the Vatican Museums
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Copies have been executed by various artists, notably Baccio Bandinelli. These show the complete sculpture (with conjectural reconstructions of the missing pieces) and can be seen in Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, at the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes
Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes
The Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes is a palace in the town of Rhodes, on the island of Rhodes in Greece. In the point that today is the palace it was earlier a Byzantine citadel that functioned as headquarters and fortress. The palace was built in the 14th century by the...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and in front of the Archaeological Museum, Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, amongst others.
The marble Laocoön provided the central image for Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...
's Laocoön, 1766, an aesthetic polemic directed against Winckelmann and the comte de Caylus. Daniel Albright reengages the role of the figure of Laocoön in aesthetic thought in his book Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Literature, Music, and Other Arts. [cite El Greco painting]
In addition to other literary references, John Barth
John Barth
John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...
employs a bust of Laocoön in his novella, The End of the Road. The R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
song "Laughing" references Laocoön, rendering him female ("Laocoön and her two sons"). The marble's pose is parodied in the comic book Asterix and the Laurel Wreath
Asterix and the Laurel Wreath
Asterix and the Laurel Wreath is the eighteenth volume of the Asterix comic book series, by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo . It was originally serialized in the magazine Pilote, issues 621-642, in 1971 and translated in to English in 1974.-Plot summary:The story begins in Rome where Asterix and...
. American author Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
also references Laocoön in her 1989 novel "American Appetites." In Stave V of "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens (1843), Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning "...making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings." Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian and author. She became known for her best-selling book The Guns of August, a history of the prelude to and first month of World War I, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1963....
's The March of Folly begins with an extensive analysis of the Laocoön story.
Classical sources
Arctinus, OCT Homer 5.107.23; pseudo-Apollodorus, Epitome 5.18; Dionysius of HalicarnassusDionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
, Roman Antiquities 1.48.2; Petronius
Petronius
Gaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is generally believed to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian age.-Life:...
89; Servius on Aeneid 2.201; Hyginus, Fabula 135; Quintus Smyrnaeus
Quintus Smyrnaeus
Quintus Smyrnaeus, also known as Kointos Smyrnaios , was a Greek epic poet whose Posthomerica, following "after Homer" continues the narration of the Trojan War....
, Posthomerica 12.445ff; John Tzetzes
John Tzetzes
John Tzetzes was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century.Tzetzes was Georgian on his mother's side...
, Ad Lycophron 347.
See also
- 3240 Laocoon3240 Laocoon3240 Laocoon is a Jupiter Trojan discovered on November 7, 1978 by S. J. Bus at Palomar.- External links :*...
, an asteroid named after Laocoön