LAOCON

Laocon, marble sculpture attributed to Agesander, Athenodorus, and Polydorus of in Greek legend, a seer and a priest of the god Apollo; he was the son of Agenor of Troy or, according to some, the brother of Anchises (the father of the hero Aeneas). Laocon offended Apollo by breaking his oath of celibacy and begetting children. Thus, while preparing to sacrifice a bull on the altar of the god Poseidon (a task that had fallen to him by lot), Laocon and his twin sons, Antiphas and Thymbraeus (also called Melanthus), were crushed to death by two great sea serpents, Porces and Chariboea (or Curissia or Periboea), sent by Apollo. An additional reason for his punishment was that he had warned the Trojans against accepting the wooden horse left by the Greeks. The legend found its most famous expressions in Virgil's Aeneid (ii, 109 et seq.) and in the Laocon statue (now in the Vatican Museum) attributed by Pliny the Elder to three Rhodian sculptors, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus.