Laocoon by Derek Bryant

 The motivation, inspiration, and admiration for a sculpture of ancient Greece were the spirit of the art work “Laocoon and his Sons.” The artist responsible for inspiration of the piece was the poet Virgil, and he must have had an emotional or divine connection with the artist to have captured the depth of suffering exhibited in the original sculpture of “Laocoon and his Sons.” The window through which understanding may be gained of this piece is in Virgil’s The Aeneid, Book Two, which describes the fall of the city of Troy. The deep respect that the Greeks, Romans, and Europeans during the early and Middle Ages had for Virgil is on the level of a saint.  His works were held in such high esteem that the early Christian Church had to purposely exclude them from the cannon of the early stages of creating the church. One can scrutinize the piece to feel the emotions of Laocoon and his sons would have experienced had this scene actually occurred. Virgil was so renowned that his writings have been found “scribbled in the stucco walls of Pompeii.” Even the “Pope Gelasius at the end of the fifth century, when making an authoritative revision of the Cannon of Holy Scripture, is said to have found it necessary to specifically exclude Virgil’s works“ (Mackail 124).

The inspiration of the second book of The Aeneid appears to have had a great effect on the sculptures of both the Greek and Roman copy of “Laocoon and his Sons.” The following is an excerpt of Book Two of The Aeneid:

Your Majesty, the pain you tell me to revive is not something that can easily be spoken of - how the Danaans (1) overthrew the wealth of Troy and its royal family for which we mourn, and things which I personally saw to my cost and of which I was a major part. Who in telling such a tale even if one of the Myrmidons or Dolopians or a soldier of steel-hearted Ulysses could keep himself from tears.

Laocoon was the son of Priam, according to Greek tradition, and was a Trojan priest of the god Poseidon. Laocoon was cursed because he did not believe that the Greeks simply gave up after 10 years of war.  So when he saw the Trojan horse being brought into the city gates, he warned the Trojans not to trust the Greeks and that the apparent parting gift was either a trap, or the Greeks were hiding in it. This angered the god Poseidon who thereafter placed a curse upon him.  As a result, Laocoon and his sons were bitten and strangled by snakes that were sent to Troy from the Island of Tenedos, where the Greeks had been temporarily stationed. The snakes were a curse sent by Poseidon while Laocoon was making a sacrifice.

Laocoon at the head of a large crowd, in plain view of everyone, Laocoon, in a blazing temper, came rushing down from the acropolis, and from far off started shouting: What colossal madness is this, you pitiful people? Do you really believe the enemy has sailed away? Do you think the Greeks make any gifts which are not tricks? Is this the Ulysses you know? Either Greeks are hidden secreted within this wood, or this is a device to attack our walls: it will spy on our homes and roll down upon the city, or it is some other kind of booby trap. Trojans do not trust the horse. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks especially bringing gifts. (Virgil)

The emotions depicted on Laocoon’s face during his torment exhibits not physical pain, but the agony of a father watching the extinction of his lineage. Furthermore, his son’s apparent yearning that their father free them was unmistakably an additional torment, which would have broken the heart of any father. The snake single mindedly focused not only on killing Laocoon and his sons, but on inflicting torment.

The Aeneid’s description of Laocoon’s bellowing does not line up with the analysis of Charles Bell, who discerned “that most terrible silence in human conflict, when the outcry of terror or pain is stifled in exertion; for during the struggle with the arms, the chest must expanded or in the act of rising, and therefore the voice, which consists of the expulsion of the breath by the falling or compression of the chest, is suppressed” (Bell).  I actually had my brother lay two 45-pound plates on my chest, then I attempted to scream. I found it impossible to bellow as Virgil described Laocoon did when he was entangled by the snakes. I would be reluctant to imitate the actual level of pain evident on the faces of Laocoon and his Sons to disprove any point. Similarly, when one is being aggressively restrained to the point that one can neither flee nor fight, and when one’s attacker by sheer power does have one completely and utterly subdued, it is all but impossible to loudly bellow as a bull. Furthermore, Laocoon’s arms and legs would have been intermingled with the snakes’ muscular, writhing bodies, as with his sons, to the point that neither would have been able to escape the poisonous bites of the accursed snakes that appeared single minded in their endeavor to inflict pain on Laocoon and his Sons.

I have not been able to find any of the specifications of the dimensions of the Greek or Roman representations of the sculpture, even though I have searched journals, history books and the internet. More likely than not, it is probably similar to the size of actual humans forms in dimensions.

Little is known of the trio who created the Greek “Laocoon and His Sons,” and there are no other sculptures attributed to them that I can find. It is believed that they were copyists, but that is not definite. However, I believe it would be interesting to know more about their backgrounds. I have decided to contact the Vatican library to inquire if they are aware of any other works of all three of the Rhodian sculptures. The Laocoon sculpture was the first work of art to be acquired and displayed by the Vatican.

The Roman copy of the Greek statute “Laocoon and his Sons” is dated in the 1^st B. C.E. and was discovered in Rome during the Italian Renaissance, in  1506,  within  the ruins of Titus’s palace. The original “Laocoon and his Sons” Greek sculpture was created by Athanodoras, Polydorous and Hagesandros of the Isle of Rhodes in Greece around 175 to 150 B.C.E. It is alleged to have been created out of one solid piece of marble, though when found, it was an assemblage of several interlocking pieces. This piece was created during the Hellenistic period, also known as Baroque period.  The 2nd century B.C.E. started the first day of 200 B.C.E. and ended the last day of 101 B.C.E. It is considered part of the Classical Era. However, depending on the region being studied, other terms may be more proper (for instance, if regarding only the Eastern Mediterranean, it would best be called part of the Hellenistic period). The sculpture of Laocoon was discovered January 14, 1506, in a vineyard near the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Pope Julius II requested Michelangelo Buonarroti and Giuliano da Sangallo to examine the find. The Pope purchased the sculpture from the owner of the vineyard and put the statute on display at the Vatican later (Vatican home page).

The sculpture of “Laocoon and his Sons” has, from its rediscovery in ancient Rome, been the subject of much admiration and inquiries as to whether it was a copy of an earlier Greek sculpture. However, the fact that this piece of art was the first to have been installed in the Vatican museum is no small matter. In fact, works of art from around the globe have, through the millennia, have been claimed by the Catholic Church through the power exhibited by it as the power behind many thrones. Additionally, I have come to respect the spirit the Greek and Roman sculptures must have surely possessed to have been so motivated to create works of high art to be adored and respected for the quality of their workmanship for over one thousand years. In regard to the inspiration of the three Rhodian sculptures, one cannot give too much credit to Virgil’s mastery of verse as their apparent motivation. Virgil, who appears to have been a mixture of rock star, poet, and prophet, was surpassed by few in the ancient world in the magnitude of renown in which he was held. It appears that the Rhodian sculptors were so fascinated by the visual imagery of Book two of Virgil’s The Aeneid that it allowed them to sculpt a visual representation of the suffering of Laocoon and his Sons that in every detail is lifelike.

1.      Danaans is one of the collective names used for the Greeks in Homer’s Iliad (used 135 times) in the historical period; the Achaeans were the inhabitants of the region of Achaea, a region in the north central part of the Peloponnese.  The city states of this region formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3^rd and 2^nd centuries B.C.

2.      Myrmidons were an ancient tribe of Greece. They were very brave and skilled warriors and were commanded by Achilles.

3.      Pain is the action potential of a nerve impulse. When the ends of sensory neurons detect a stimulus, the electrical potential across the cell membrane is transiently reversed by a rapid flow of positively charged ions through specialized ion channels. This ultimately leads to a wave of electrical activity passing down the nerve fiber to the spinal cord.

4.      Tenedos is the island of Tenedos. It is situated near Troy and controls the southwestern entrance of the Hellespont, from which it is about 20 km away. According to the ancient legends, the Greeks went into hiding at Tenedos after leaving behind the Trojan horse. It must have been more common for ships to wait on the beach of the little island until favorable winds allowed them to enter the Hellespont.

Works Cited

Mackail, J. Virgil and his meaning to the world of today. New York: Cooper Square Publishers.   1963. Print.

P. Virgilius Maro, Aeneid (ed John Dryden) http:  old perseus.tufts.edu/cgi

     Bin/ptex?lookup=Verg.+A+1

Ross, David. "Virgil's Aeneid." (2007): n. pag. Web. 31 Oct 2009.

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html