Laocoön in the context of "Acoetes"

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art, who attributed it to Greek sculptors but did not say when it was created. The figures are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.

The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering here suggests neither redemption nor reward. The agony is conveyed through the contorted facial expressions, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne as physiologically impossible. These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Anchises (/ænˈkaɪsiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἀγχίσης, romanized: Ankhísēs) was a member of the royal family of Troy. He was said to have been the son of King Capys of Dardania and Themiste, daughter of Ilus, who was son of Tros. He is most famous as the father of Aeneas and for his treatment in Virgil's Aeneid. Anchises' brother was Acoetes, father of the priest Laocoön.

He was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman goddess Venus). Zeus made her fall in love with Anchises while he was herding sheep at the foot of Mount Ida. One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him, only to later reveal herself and inform him that they would have a son named Aeneas; Aphrodite had warned Anchises that if he told anyone about her being the mother of his child, Zeus would strike him down with his thunderbolt. He did not heed her warning and was struck with a thunderbolt, which in different versions either blinds him or kills him. The principal early narrative of Aphrodite's seduction of Anchises and the birth of Aeneas is the Homeric Hymn (5) to Aphrodite. According to the Bibliotheca, Anchises and Aphrodite had another son, Lyrus, who died childless. He later had a mortal wife named Eriopis, according to the scholiasts, and he is credited with other children beside Aeneas and Lyrus. Homer, in the Iliad, mentions a daughter named Hippodamia, their eldest ("the darling of her father and mother"), who married her cousin Alcathous.

In Greek mythology, Antiope /ænˈtaɪ.əpi/ or Antiopa (Ancient Greek: Ἀντιόπη derived from αντι anti "against, compared to, like" and οψ ops "voice" or means "confronting") may refer to the following

• Antiope, daughter of King Belus of Egypt and possibly, Achiroe, the naiad daughter of the river-god Nilus. She was the sister of Agenor II, Phineus, Aegyptus, Danaus, Cepheus and Ninus. By her uncle, King Agenor I of Tyre, Antiope became the mother of Cadmus and his siblings. In some accounts, this daughter of Belus was called Damno. Otherwise, the spouse of Agenor was variously given as Telephassa, Argiope or Tyro.
• Antiope, daughter of Aeolus, by whom Poseidon begot Boeotus and Hellen (Aeolus). She was also called Arne or Melanippe, in some accounts.
• Antiope, nymph of Pieria and the mother, by Pierus, of the Pierides, nine sisters who challenged the muses and, on their defeat, were turned into birds.
• Antiope, consort of Helios and possible mother of Aeetes and Aloeus.
• Antiope, sister of Hippolyte, kidnapped by Theseus during Heracles' ninth labour.
• Antiope, mother of Amphion by Zeus, associated with the mythology of Thebes, Greece.
• Antiope, also called Antioche, daughter of Pylon and wife of Eurytus.
• Antiope, a Thespian princess as one of the 50 daughters of King Thespius and Megamede or by one of his many wives. When Heracles hunted and ultimately slayed the Cithaeronian lion, Antiope with her other sisters, except for one, all laid with the hero in a night, a week or for 50 days as what their father strongly desired it to be. Antiope bore Heracles a son, Alopius.
• Antiope, wife of Laocoön.

In Greek mythology, Themiste (Ancient Greek: Θεμίστη, romanized: Themístē) or Themis was a Trojan princess and daughter of King Ilus II of Troad. She was the (half) sister of Laomedon, Tithonius and Telecleia. Themiste was married off by Ilus to her cousin King Capys, son of Assaracus and Hieromneme, and became the queen of Dardania. With him she became the mother of Anchises and possibly, Acoetes. The former son would later become the father of the famous Aeneas while the later one, became the father of the priest Laocoon.