What is "laocoon"

Laocoon \La*oc"o*["o]n\, n. [L., fr. Gr. ? ]

1. (Class. Myth.) A priest of Apollo, during the Trojan war. (See

2. )

   2. (Sculp.) A marble group in the Vatican at Rome, representing the priest Laoco["o]n, with his sons, infolded in the coils of two serpents, as described by Virgil.

Trojan priest of Apollo, from Latin Laocoon, from Greek Laukoun, from laos "people" (see lay (adj.)) + koeo "I mark, perceive."\n\nLaocoön, n. A famous piece of antique sculpture representing a priest of that time 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 in their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

[Ambrose Bierce, "Devil's Dictionary," 1911]

Laocoön (; , ), the son of Acoetes, is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle. He was a Trojan priest who was attacked, with his two sons, by giant serpents sent by the gods. Though not mentioned by Homer, the story of Laocoön had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. The most famous account of these is now in Virgil's Aeneid where Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon (or Neptune for the Romans), who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear.

Virgil gives Laocoön the famous line " Equō nē crēdite, Teucrī / Quidquid id est, timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentēs", 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."

In Sophocles, however, he was a priest of Apollo, who should have been celibate but had married. The serpents killed only the two sons, leaving Laocoön himself alive to suffer. In other versions he was killed for having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image in a sanctuary, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present. In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by Poseidon and in the first by Poseidon and Athena, or Apollo, and the deaths were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The two versions have rather different morals: Laocoön was either punished for doing wrong, or for being right.

Laocoon may refer to:

• Laocoön, the Trojan priest of Poseidon
• Laocoön and His Sons, a famous sculpture in Vatican City
• Laocoön (El Greco), an oil painting by El Greco

• : An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

• Laocoön, William Blake's last illuminated work
• Asteroid 3240 Laocoon

The Laocoön is an oil painting created between 1610 and 1614 by renowned Greek artist and Spanish Renaissance master Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco ("The Greek"). It is part of a collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..

The painting depicts the Greek and Roman mythological story of the deaths of Laocoön, a Trojan priest of Poseidon, and his two sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus. Laocoön and his sons were strangled by sea serpents, a punishment sent by the gods after Laocoön attempted to warn his countrymen about the Trojan horse. Although inspired by the recently discovered monumental Hellenistic sculpture Laocoön and His Sons in Rome, Laocoön is a product of Mannerism, an artistic movement originating in Italy during the 16th century that countered the artistic ideals of the Renaissance. El Greco’s painting deliberately breaks away from the balance and harmony of Renaissance art with its strong emotional atmosphere and distorted figures.