familiar
to us than the group of the Laocoon.

In the time of Pliny this work stood in the palace of Titus, and the
historian called it "preferable to all other works of pictorial or
plastic art." There is a difference of opinion as to the period when it
was made, and many date it in the time of Titus, who lived A.D. 40 to
81. But the weight of argument seems to me to rest with those who
believe that it was made at Rhodes in the time of the Diadochi.

The group in the Vatican is probably a copy, because Pliny says that the
original was made of one block, and that of the Vatican is composed of
six pieces. Pliny also tells us that the Laocoon was the work of three
sculptors, AGESANDER, POLYDORUS, and ATHENODORUS. The Vatican group was
found in 1506 in the excavation of the Baths of Titus, in Rome, and was
placed in its present position by Pope Julius II. (Fig. 51). The right
arm of Laocoon was missing, and Michael Angelo attempted to restore it,
but left it incomplete; Montorsoli made an unsatisfactory attempt for
its restoration, and the arm as it now is was made by Cornacini, and
more straight than it should be.

The story which these statues illustrate is told in the second book of
the AEneid, and says that Laocoon was a priest of Apollo at Troy, who,
when the Greeks left the wooden horse outside the city and pretended to
sail away, warned the Trojans against taking the horse inside the walls;
he also struck his spear into the side of the monster. But Sinon, who
had been left behind by the Greeks, persuaded the Trojans that the horse
would prove a blessing to them, and they drew it into the city, and
ordered feasts and sacrifices to be celebrated to do honor to the
occasion. Laocoon had much offended Pallas Athene by his words and acts,
and when he went to prepare a sacrifice to Neptune that goddess sent two
huge serpents up out of the sea to destroy him and his two sons, who
were with him by the altar. When the three victims were dead the fearful
creatures went to the Acropolis and disappeared.

[Illustration: FIG. 51.--THE LAOCOON GROUP.]

In the Laocoon group it appears that the eldest son will save himself,
and in certain minor points the sculptors seem not to have followed the
account of Virgil; but we see that it must be the same story that is
illustrated, and we know that it was told with some variation by other
poets. This group is a wonderful piece of sculpture, but it is not of
the highest art, and it i