The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums,Beard, 209 where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art, who attributed it to Greek sculptors but did not say when it was created.The Capitoline Wolf was until recently thought to be the same statue praised by Pliny, but modern tests suggest it is medieval. The figures are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.
The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art.Spivey, 25 Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering here suggests neither redemption nor reward.Spivey, 28–29 The agony is conveyed through the contorted facial expressions, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne as physiologically impossible. These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining.Spivey, 25 (Darwin), 121–122
Pliny attributed the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, but he did not mention the date or patron. In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition.Boardman, 199 However, its origin is uncertain, as it is not known if it is an original work or a copy of an earlier bronze sculpture. Some believe it to be a copy of a work from the early Imperial period, while others think it to be an original work from the later period, continuing the Pergamene style of some two centuries earlier.Clark, 219–221 was an early proponent of this view; see also Barkan, caption opp. p 1, Janson etc Regardless, it was probably commissioned for a wealthy Roman's home, possibly from the Imperial family. The dates suggested for the statue range from 200 BC to the 70s AD,Boardman, 199 says "about 200 BC"; Spivey, 26, 36, feels it may have been commissioned by Titus. with a Julio-Claudian date (27 BC to 68 AD) now being the preferred option.Howard, 422
Despite being in mostly excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts and underwent several ancient modifications, as well as restorations since its excavation.Howard, throughout; "Chronology", and several discussions in the other sources The statue is currently on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, which is part of the Vatican Museums.
Subject
The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It 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 (see the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this dates from between 29 and 19 BC, which is possibly later than the sculpture. However, some scholars see the group as a depiction of the scene as described by Virgil.Boardman, 199, also Sperlonga und Vergil by Roland Hampe; but see Smith, 109 for the opposite view.
In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. In Sophocles, on the other hand, 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.Smith, 109 In other versions he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present.Stewart, 85, this last in the commentary on Virgil of Maurus Servius Honoratus, citing Euphorion of Chalcis In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by PoseidonWilliam Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Taylor and Walton, 1846, p. 776 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.
The snakes are depicted as both biting and constricting, and are probably intended as venomous, as in Virgil.The Greeks were familiar with constricting snakes, and the small boa Eryx jaculus is still native to Greece. But the danger to Ancient Greeks from venomous snakes was far greater Pietro Aretino thought so, praising the group in 1537: ... the two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear, suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the child who has received the poison, dies.Farinella, 16
In at least one Greek telling of the story the older son is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.Stewart, 78
History
Ancient times The style of the work is agreed to be that of the Hellenistic "Pergamene baroque" which arose in Greek Asia Minor around 200 BC, and whose best known undoubtedly original work is the Pergamon Altar, dated –160 BC, and now in Berlin.Boardman, 164–166, 197–199; Clark, 216–219; Cook, 153
The figure of Alcyoneus is shown in a pose and situation (including serpents) which is very similar to those of Laocoön, though the style is "looser and wilder in its principles" than the altar.Cook, 153
The execution of the Laocoön is extremely fine throughout, and the composition very carefully calculated, even though it appears that the group underwent adjustments in ancient times. The two sons are rather small in scale compared to their father, but this adds to the impact of the central figure. The fine white marble used is often thought to be Greek, but has not been identified by analysis.
Pliny In Pliny's survey of Greek and Roman stone sculpture in his encyclopedic Natural History (XXXVI, 36), he says: ....in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of [bronze] statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes.English text at Tufts, Book 36, Ch 4, but usually cited as 36:37, e.g. by Spivey, 26. Latin text: "...nec deinde multo plurium fama est, quorundam claritati in operibus eximiis obstante numero artificum, quoniam nec unus occupat gloriam nec plures pariter nuncupari possunt, sicut in laocoonte, qui est in titi imperatoris domo, opus omnibus et picturae et statuariae artis praeferendum. ex uno lapide eum ac liberos draconumque mirabiles nexus de consilii sententia fecere summi artifices Hagesander et Polydorus et Athenodorus rhodii." Naturalis Historia. Pliny the Elder. Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff. Lipsiae. Teubner. 1906, as 36:11, at Tufts. The word statuariae used by Pliny means bronze statues as opposed to stone, as pointed out by Bernard Andreae (e.g. Andreae 1991 and, in more detail, Andreae 1988) and others. See Isager, 171.
It is generally accepted that this is the same work as is now in the Vatican.As Beard, 210, a sceptic, complains; see "Chronology" at January 1506 for dissidents It is now very often thought that the three Rhodians were copyists, perhaps of a bronze sculpture from Pergamon, created around 200 BC.Stewart, Andrew W. (1996), "Hagesander, Athanodorus and Polydorus", in Hornblower, Simon, Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Boardman, 199; Smith, 109–110 It is noteworthy that Pliny does not address this issue explicitly, in a way that suggests "he regards it as an original".Isager, 173 Pliny states that it was located in the palace of the emperor Titus, who reigned from 79 to 81 AD, and it is possible that it remained in the same place until 1506 (see "Findspot" section below). He also asserts that it was carved from a single piece of marble, though the Vatican work comprises at least seven interlocking pieces.Howard 417–418 and figure 1 has the fullest account used of the complicated situation here; with the damages and after the various restorations he lists 14 parts (417, note 4) when the group was last dismantled. See also Richard Brilliant, My Laocoön – Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks, University of California Press, 2000, p. 29. The phrase translated above as "in concert" (de consilii sententia) is regarded by some as referring to their commission rather than the artists' method of working, giving in Nigel Spivey's translation: "[the artists] at the behest of council designed a group...", which Spivey takes to mean that the commission was by Titus, possibly even advised by Pliny among other savants.Spivey, 26; see also Isager, 173, who translates it "by decision of the [imperial] council".