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Laocoön is an antique marble group (Vatican Museum) representing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two sons being crushed to death by serpents as a penalty for warning the Trojans against the wooden horse of the Greeks, an incident related by Virgil in the Aeneid. It is usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC or the 1st century AD, although whether it is an original Hellenistic piece or a Roman copy has long been a matter of dispute. Pliny states that in his time it stood in the palace of the Emperor Titus in Rome and records that it was made by the sculptors Hagesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes.
The sculpture had disappeared, and its rediscovery in a vineyard in Rome in 1506 made an overwhelming impression, notably on Michelangelo, who went to see it immediately. Its liberating influence for the expression of the emotions continued to be important for Baroque sculptures.
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