milicentbrovovich:

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), also called the Laocoön Group, is a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The statue is attributed by the Roman author Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus. It shows the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being strangled by sea serpents.

Laocoön was killed after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. The snakes were sent by Poseidon^[1] (although Athena or Apollo have also been suggested) and were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The most famous account of these events is in Virgil’s Aeneid (See the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this very probably dates from after the sculpture was made.

(Source: norma-bara)