The air and manner with which Sinon told this story seemed so sincere, and so natural and unaffected were the expressions of wretchedness and despair with which he ended his narrative, that the Trojan leaders had no suspicion that it was not true. Their compassion was moved for the wretched fugitive, and they determined to spare his life. Priam, the aged king, who was present at the scene, in the midst of the Trojan generals, ordered the cords with which the peasants had bound the captive to be sundered, that he might stand before them free. The king spoke to him, too, in a kind and encouraging manner. "Forget your countrymen," said he. "They are gone. Henceforth you shall be one of us. We will take care of you. And now," he continued, "tell us what this monstrous image means. Why did the Greeks make it, and why have they left it here?"
Sinon, as if grateful for the generosity with which his life had been spared, professed himself ready to give his benefactors the fullest information. He told them that the wooden horse had been built by the Greeks to replace a certain image of Pallas which they had previously taken and borne away from Troy. It was to replace this image, Sinon said, that the Greeks had built the wooden horse; and their purpose in making the image of this monstrous size was to prevent the possibility of the Trojans taking it into the city, and thus appropriating to themselves the benefit of its protecting efficacy and virtue.
The Trojans listened with breathless interest to all that Sinon said, and readily believed his story; so admirably well did he counterfeit, by his words and his demeanor, all the marks and tokens of honest sincerity in what he said of others, as well of grief and despair in respect to his own unhappy lot. The current of opinion which had begun before to set strongly in favor of destroying the horse, was wholly turned, and all began at once to look upon the colossal image as an object of sacred veneration, and to begin to form plans for transporting it within the limits of the city. Whatever remaining doubts any of them might have felt on the subject were dispelled by the occurrence of a most extraordinary phenomenon just at this stage of the affair, which was understood by all to be a divine judgment upon Laocoon for his sacriligious temerity in striking his spear into the horse's side. It had been determined to offer a sacrifice to Neptune. Lots were drawn to determine who should perform the rite. The lot fell upon Laocoon. He began to make preparations to perform the duty, assisted by his two young sons, when suddenly two immense serpents appeared, coming up from the sea. They came swimming over the surface of the water, with their heads elevated above the waves, until they reached the shore, and then gliding swiftly along, they advanced across the plain, their bodies brilliantly spotted and glittering in the sun, their eyes flashing, and their forked and venomous tongues darting threats and defiance as they came. The people fled in dismay. The serpents, disregarding all others, made their way directly toward the affrighted children of Laocoon, and twining around them they soon held the writhing and struggling limbs of their shrieking victims hopelessly entangled in their deadly convolutions.
Laocoon, who was himself at a little distance from the spot, when the serpents came, as soon as he saw the danger and heard the agonizing cries of his boys, seized a weapon and ran to rescue them. Instead, however, of being able to save his children, he only involved himself in their dreadful fate. The serpents seized him as soon as he came within their reach, and taking two turns around his neck and two around his body, and binding in a remorseless grip the forms of the fainting and dying boys with other convolutions, they raised their heads high above the group of victims which they thus enfolded, and hissed and darted out their forked tongues in token of defiance and victory. When at length their work was done, they glided away and took refuge in a temple that was near, and coiled themselves up for repose beneath the feet of the statue of a goddess that stood in the shrine.
The story of Laocoon has become celebrated among all mankind in modern times by means of a statue representing the catastrophe, which was found two or three centuries ago among the ruins of an ancient edifice at Rome. This statue was mentioned by an old Roman writer, Pliny, who gave an account of it while it yet stood in its place in the ancient city. He said that it was the work of three artists, a father and two sons, who combined their industry and skill to carve in one group, and with immense labor and care, the representation of Laocoon himself, the two boys, and the two serpents, making five living beings intertwined intricately together, and all carved from one single block of marble. On the decline and fall of Rome this statue was lost among the ruins of the city, and for many centuries it was known to mankind only through the description of Pliny. At length it was brought to light again, having been discovered about three centuries ago, under the ruins of the very edifice in which Pliny had described it as standing. It immediately became the object of great interest and attention to the whole world. It was deposited in the Vatican; a great reward was paid to the owner of the ground on which it was discovered; drawings and casts of it, without number, have been made; and the original stands in the Vatican now, an object of universal interest, as one of the most celebrated sculptures of ancient or modern times.
Laocoon himself forms the center of the group, with the serpents twined around him, while he struggles, with a fearful expression of terror and anguish in his countenance, in the vain attempt to release himself from their hold. One of the serpents has bitten one of the boys in the side, and the wounded child sinks under the effects of the poison. The other boy, in an agony of terror, is struggling, hopelessly, to release his foot from the convolutions with which one of the serpents has encircled it. The expression of the whole group is exciting and painful, and yet notwithstanding this, there is combined with it a certain mysterious grace and beauty which charms every eye, and makes the composition the wonder of mankind.
But to return to the story. The people understood this awful visitation to be the judgment of heaven against Laocoon for his sacrilegious presumption in daring to thrust his spear into the side of the image before them, and which they were now very sure they were to consider as something supernatural and divine. They determined with one accord to take it into the city.
They immediately began to make preparations for the transportation of it. They raised it from the ground, and fitted to the feet some sort of machinery of wheels or rollers, suitable to the nature of the ground, and strong enough to bear the weight of the colossal mass. They attached long ropes to the neck of the image, and extended them forward upon the ground, and then brought up large companies of citizens and soldiers to man them. They arranged a procession, consisting of the generals of the army, and of the great civil dignitaries of the state; and in addition to these were groups of singing boys and girls, adorned with wreaths and garlands, who were appointed to chant sacred hymns to solemnize the occasion. They widened the access to the city, too, by tearing down a portion of the wall so as to open a sufficient space to enable the monster to get in. When all was ready the ropes were manned, the signal was given, the ponderous mass began to move, and though it encountered in its progress many difficulties, obstructions, and delays, in due time it was safely deposited in the court of a great public edifice within the city. The wall was then repaired, the day passed away, the night came on, the gates were shut, and the curiosity and wonder of the people within being gradually satisfied, they at length dispersed to their several homes and retired to rest. At midnight the unconscious effigy stood silent and alone where its worshipers had left it, while the whole population of the city were sunk in slumber, except the sentinels who had been stationed as usual to keep guard at the gates, or to watch upon the towers and battlements above them.