The tragedy of the one guy who was right about the Trojan Horse - Noah Charney

For ten grueling years, the Greeks laid siege to Troy, scattering ships and encampments across the city's shores. But as the Trojans awoke for another day of battle, they found their enemies had vanished overnight— leaving behind only an enormous wooden horse. Seeing this as a symbol of the Greek’s surrender, the soldiers dragged their prize into the city and began to celebrate. But one Trojan wasn't happy.

Laocoön, a seer and priest, was deeply suspicious of the Greek gift. He reminded his fellow Trojans of their enemy’s reputation for trickery and cautioned them not to accept this strange offering. The crowd jeered at his warning, but Laocoön was undeterred. He forced his way to the wooden beast and thrust his sword into its belly. Yet his blade drew no blood. And if there were men shifting inside, Laocoön couldn't hear them over the crowd.

Still grim with foreboding, Laocoön retreated home and enlisted his sons in preparing a sacrifice to the gods. But his fate— and that of his fellow Trojans— was already sealed. The gods had decided to grant the Greeks victory by ensuring the success of their scheme to infiltrate Troy. And Poseidon sought to punish the priest for threatening that plan.

Two great serpents emerged from the sea’s rolling waves and descended on Laocoön and his sons. The seer’s violent death went unnoticed amidst the celebrations. But, that night, when tragedy struck, the Trojans finally remembered the old priest’s warning. Laocoön's tragic tale inspired countless retellings across the ancient world.

Virgil describes the seer’s demise in his epic poem “The Aeneid,” and Sophocles composed an entire play about the ill-fated priest. However, his most famous and influential depiction is a marble statue called “Laocoön and His Sons.” Likely carved by a trio of artists from Rhodes, the exact origins of this piece remain mysterious, with current theories dating its creation anywhere from 200 BCE to 68 CE.

Whenever it was made, this sculpture remains the epitome of the Hellenistic Baroque style. But even within a tradition known for its dramatic facial expressions and contorted figures, no other piece in this style comes close to the intensity of “Laocoön and His Sons.” The nearly life-sized figures are writhing in agony, straining to untangle massive snakes from their limbs. Their faces are packed with desperation and hopelessness, yet Laocoön’s expression is fiercely determined to resist.

The scene is also uniquely brutal— paused precisely as the serpent’s venomous jaws are about to bite down. Displayed as the centerpiece of Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea palace complex, this gruesome sculpture was one of the most talked about artworks of its time. Renowned Roman writer Pliny the Elder even went so far as to call it “preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of statuary.”

Unfortunately, the statue was lost when Domus Aurea was consumed by fire in 109 CE. But Laocoön's tale was far from finished. In 1506, Michelangelo Buonarotti— then the most famous sculptor in Rome— received a message that Pope Julius II had unearthed something marvelous. Even caked with dirt, “Laocoön and His Sons” astonished Michelangelo. The dramatic musculature was over-the-top, but all the more powerful for being so extreme.

And the curving shapes of its serpent and human figures drew his eyes in constant motion. Pope Julius prominently displayed the piece at the Vatican, but its influence on Michelangelo is what made the statue truly famous. The sculpture's emotive, exaggerated elements transformed his approach to representing the human body. His paintings and sculptures began to feature contorted poses, referred to as “figura serpentinata,” meaning snake-like shapes.

And his celebrated work in the Sistine Chapel centered on muscular, hyperextended figures. Soon, Michelangelo’s new style sparked an entire artistic movement called Mannerism— influencing artists throughout the 1500s to exaggerate and twist human bodies for dramatic effect. Since artists of the Renaissance revered ancient Greco-Roman art above all else, perhaps it’s not surprising that “Laocoön and His Sons” made such a large impact.

But not even the real Laocoön could have predicted that his likeness would become one of the most influential sculptures ever made.