Editing Laocoön (section)

==Death==
[[File:VaticanVergilFolio18vLaocoon.jpg|thumb|Death of Laocoön from the [[Vatican Vergil]]]]
The most detailed description of Laocoön's grisly fate was provided by [[Quintus Smyrnaeus]] in ''[[Posthomerica]]'', a later, literary version of events following the ''[[Iliad]]''. According to Quintus, Laocoön begged the Trojans to set fire to the [[Trojan horse]] to ensure it was not a trick.

Athena, angry with him and the Trojans, shook the ground around Laocoön's feet and painfully blinded him. The Trojans, watching this unfold, assumed Laocoön was punished for the Trojans' mutilating and doubting [[Sinon]], the undercover Greek soldier sent to convince the Trojans to let him and the horse inside their city walls. Thus, the Trojans wheeled the great wooden horse in. Laocoön did not give up trying to convince the Trojans to burn the horse.

According to one source, it was [[Athena]] who punished Laocoön even further, by sending two giant sea serpents to strangle and kill him and his two sons.<ref>{{cite book |author=Quintus of Smyrna |title=The Trojan Epic Posthomerica |translator=James, Alan |place=Baltimore, MD |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2004 |edition=Print}}</ref> Another version of the story says that it was [[Poseidon]] who sent the sea serpents to kill them. And according to [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], it was [[Apollo]] who sent the two sea serpents, because Laocoön had insulted Apollo by having sex with his wife in front of his cult statue.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]] |title=Epitome |at=E.5.18 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DEpitome%3Abook%3DE%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D18 |via=Perseus project, [[Tufts University]] |access-date=20 February 2021 |archive-date=21 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021124231/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DEpitome%3Abook%3DE%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D18 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Virgil used the story in the ''[[Aeneid]]''. According to Virgil, Laocoön advised the Trojans not to receive the horse from the Greeks. They were taken in by the deceitful testimony of Sinon and disregarded Laocoön's advice. The enraged Laocoön threw his spear at the Horse in response.

Minerva then sent sea serpents to strangle Laocoön and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus, for his actions.
: "Laocoön, ostensibly sacrificing a bull to Neptune on behalf of the city (lines&nbsp;201 ff.), becomes himself the tragic victim, as the simile (lines&nbsp;223–224) makes clear. In some sense, his death must be symbolic of the city as a whole&nbsp;..." — S.V. Tracy (1987)<ref name=Tracy-1987>{{cite journal |first=S.V. |last=Tracy |date=Autumn 1987 |title=Laocoon's guilt |journal=The American Journal of Philology |volume=108 |issue=3 |pages=452–453 |doi=10.2307/294668 |jstor=294668}}</ref>{{rp|style=ama |page= 453}}

According to the Hellenistic poet [[Euphorion of Chalcis]], Laocoön was ''actually'' punished for procreating upon holy ground sacred to Poseidon; it was only unlucky timing that caused the Trojans to misinterpret his death as punishment for striking the horse with a spear, which they bring into the city with disastrous consequences.{{efn|
Euphorion's poem is lost, but Servius alludes to the lines in his scholia on the ''Aeneid''.
}}
The episode furnished the subject of [[Sophocles]]' lost tragedy, ''Laocoön''.

In ''[[Aeneid]]'', Virgil describes the circumstances of Laocoön's death:

:{|
|-
| from the ''[[Aeneid]]''
| &emsp; &emsp;
| English translation
| &emsp; &emsp;
| tr. [[John Dryden|Dryden]]<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Virgil]] |title=[[Aeneid]] |translator=[[John Dryden|Dryden, J.]] |at=[http://www.bartleby.com/13/2.html line&nbsp;290] }}</ref>
|-
| {{smalldiv|
''Ille simul manibus''
:''tendit divellere nodos''
''perfusus sanie vittas''
:''atroque veneno,''
''clamores simul horrendos''
:''ad sidera tollit:''
''qualis mugitus, fugit''
:''cum saucius aram''
''taurus et incertam''
:''excussit cervice securim.''
}}
| &emsp; &emsp;
| {{smalldiv|
''At the same time he stretched hands''
: ''forth to tear the knots''
''his fillets soaked with saliva''
: ''and black venom''
''at the same time he lifted horrendous''
: ''cries to heaven:''
''like the bellowing when fleeing''
: ''from the altar a wounded''
''bull and has shaken the''
: ''ill-aimed axe from its neck.''
}}
| &emsp; &emsp;
| {{smalldiv|
''With both his hands''
: ''he labors at the knots;''
''His holy fillets''
: ''the blue venom blots;''
''His roaring fills''
: ''the flitting air around.''
''Thus, when an ox''
: ''receives a glancing wound,''
''He breaks his bands,''
: ''the fatal altar flies,''
''And with loud bellowings''
: ''breaks the yielding skies.''
}}
|}