User:DerHexer/Laocoön
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Laocoön (Ancient Greek: Λᾱοκόων, IPA: [laːokǒɔːn]) was in the Greek and Roman mythology a Trojan priest of Apollo Thymbraios or Poseidon. He was first mentioned in Arctinus of Miletus’ Iliupersis (7th century BCE), a work largely lost. Later Greek and Latin authors highly varied their presentation of Laocoön’s actions in their works on the Trojan War.
The first greek authors whose work only remained as fragments or in summaries report that Laocoön and his wife loved each other in the temple of Apollo Thymbraios and thereby provoked the god to wrath. Two snakes, sent by the god, killed Laocoön with either one or both sons at the altar of Apollo Thymbraios in Troy. Only Virgil’s portrayal of the myth (1st century CE) is the first longer narration that survived. Here Laocoön’s story was rearranged and connected with the Trojan Horse: The Greeks left Troy and by doing this pretended to donate a wooden horse to the city in dedication of the gods which instead was stuffed with Greek warriors. It was only Laocoön who identified the fraud, but failed with bumping a spear into it. Afterwards, the Greek goddess Athena sent out two snakes to kill Laocoön and his two sons. The Trojans rated that as a penalty of the gods for the desecration of the gift, pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy and thereby sealed their fate.
Not many illustrations of Laocoön remained from antiquity either. Besides two kraters, only two murals in Pompeji and few contorniates are known to date; whether or not a late-Etruscan gem depicts Laocoön, is debated. Until the end of the latin Middle Ages, the knowledge of Laocoön’s myth vanished and his illustrations too got lost; the only artificial evidence for knowing his story are drawings in Virgil manuscripts. Only when the Laocoön group, a Roman marble sculpture of the 1st century BC or BCE which depicts Laocoön and his sons fighting two snakes, was found in 1506, several illustration of this story followed. Based on this finding, a general debate on Greek art originates especially in the 17th and 18th century. The interpretation of the myth of Laocoön is very debated among experts. Their main focus lies on his portrayals by Virgil, Petronius und Quintus Smyrnaeus.