Found in the Baths of Titus in 1506. Pliny (xxxvi. 4) thus describes
it:--"A work which may be considered superior to all others both in
painting and statuary. The whole group--the father, the boys, and the
awful folds of the serpents--were formed out of a single block by
Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes. Michael
Angelo said, however, and it has since been proved, that it is in
three pieces."
"Two serpents ... their destined way they take,
And to Laocoön and his children make:
And first around the tender boys they wind,
Then with their sharpened fangs their limbs and bodies grind.
The wretched father, running to their aid
With pious haste, but vain, they next invade;
Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled,
And twice about his gasping throat they fold.
The priest thus doubly choked, their crests divide,
And towering o'er his head in triumph ride."
VIRGIL, "Æn.," ii. 209: DRYDEN.
_We now enter the_