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,