Laocoon

Laocoon, according to the Greek legend, a brother of Anchises and a priest of Apollo. Having offended the god by his marriage, and also, perhaps, by the warning- he gave to the Trojans about the wooden horse, he was destroyed with' his two sons by two serpents while sacrificing to Poseidon. Viigil tells the story in the second book of the AEneid, and it has been preserved for posterity by the splendid sculpture now in the Vatican.