By Meghan Reedy
What a crazy thing that happens to Laocoon in lines 199–233! In 1766, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote a whole book called Laocoon. It was a ground-breaking book about poetry and painting inspired by this one scene: he started by comparing the description Vergil gives here with a famous marble statue of the incident, and he was interested in what was similar and different about them. What of what Vergil said could and couldn’t be depicted in a sculpture, and vice versa? Indeed, there is a lot to ponder about this scene, like: What are the sounds that accompany this scene? What moves and how? Which words in the passage lead you to answer as you do––which verbs? adjectives? nouns? clusters of conjunctions or their absence?
However, this passage also participates in a larger pattern, and it is the larger pattern that interests me here––a pattern of ring composition.
We can see this pattern now because the first, headlong episode of Aeneas’ story is drawing to a close. There was the building of the horse and Trojans finding it (15–39), then Laocoon rushed in and gave his incredulous, stern, correct opinion on the matter (40–56), and then––at the heart of the episode––was the interaction with Sinon (Ecce! in 56 through to non mille carinae in 198); now Laocoon is wordlessly, extravagantly destroyed by water-dragons (199–233), and people take the horse into the city amid celebrations (234–49). Horse, Laocoon, Sinon, Laocoon, horse: a tidy ring composition, as this pattern is called, which helps us feel the rise and fall of the events unfolding.
The narrative pattern of ring composition invites us to look for even more, smaller patterns that reinforce or add interest to the larger one. One sub-pattern to notice here is created by the way testimony is treated: true or false? believed or disbelieved? This sub-pattern both stitches the pieces of the narrative together and calls it into question.
In 15–16, we are given the very basic information that the Greeks built a huge horse, equum … aedificant––and Aeneas tells us they built it through the divine skill of Pallas Athena, divina Palladis arte. Okay so far. But right away, a story is told about why: votum pro reditu simulant: ea fama vagatur (17); note that Aeneas tells us that the Greeks are pretending about this, simulant. So, Aeneas starts us out by telling us about a piece of false testimony––even though, in a way, it turns out to be true: they do offer the horse, and they do get to leave in return.
He closes it by telling us about a piece of true testimony: in 246 he mentions how Cassandra told them what would happen, tunc etiam fatis aperit Cassandra futuris. By now, it is not surprising that true testimony is not believed by the Trojans––Cassandra is destined non umquam credita Teucris (247)––and false testimony is believed.
Thus, the outer ring, which we labeled ‘horse’ above, contains an inversion: ‘false testimony believed’ at the start, and ‘true testimony disbelieved’ at the end.
When Laocoon rushes in with a hunch about the truth, he seeks true testimony. After he voices his distrust (equo ne credite, 48), which he has based upon his past experience with the Greeks and with Ulysses in particular (43–44), he throws his spear at the horse: and the hollow belly makes the groan of a cavernous hollow, uteroque recusso insonuere cavae gemintumque dedere cavernae (52–53). Laocoon’s spear-test produces wordless––but true––testimony about the nature of the horse.
Conversely, his death produces testimony that is wordless but false. As Sinon finishes speaking, the sea-snakes kill him and his sons without any of them uttering a single intelligible word. The scene is horrifying (horresco referens, Aeneas says, in 204) and fear creeps into the Trojans (insinuat pavor, 229). Then, they say (ferunt) that Laocoon was killed because he hurt the horse, scelus expendisse merentem Laocoonta ferunt, sacrum qui cuspide robur laeserit … (229–31).
Therefore, the middle ring, which we labeled ‘Laocoon’, also contains an inversion: ‘true testimony’ at the start and ‘false testimony’ at the end – but the inversion is murky. The testimony seems like it should be clear, but it is in both instances contested. The Trojans are in disagreement about the horse at the start; do they believe Laocoon’s testimony? At the end, they are fearful and awestruck; is what they say (ferunt) what they believe?
At the heart of this passage is Sinon’s speech––in which, as we are frequently reminded, truth and falsehood freely intermingle and change places. Sinon’s speech, it seems, warps what it touches. He transmutes the initial rumor about the horse into a clear prophecy that includes a mechanism for testing its veracity: si vestra manus violasset dona Minervae, tum magnum exitium … Priami imperio Phrygibusque futurum (190–91). It is this mechanism that the Trojans are using when they say that Laocoon deserved to die because he harmed the horse. However, we readers know that the horse is a trick, that Laocoon was right, that Sinon’s ‘prophecy’ is exactly upside down. If they destroy the horse, Troy will be safe––Aeneas said exactly this right after Laocoon’s spear thudded home: impulerat ferro Argolicas foedare latebras, Troiaque nunc staret, Priamique arx alta maneres (55–56)––and keeping the horse safe will destroy Troy. Thus, the Trojans’ interpretation of Laocoon’s death must be false; he cannot have been killed according to the terms of the false prophecy of Sinon. Can he?
Then again, isn’t Sinon’s prophecy also true, when you take the long view? By the time Vergil is writing the Aeneid, Rome has already long since conquered Greece completely––Sinon’s and the Greeks’ descendants have already suffered the destruction he predicted. If Rome is ultimately an extension and expansion of Troy, then the Trojans have already come to dominate the whole Mediterranean, just as Sinon predicted. From this viewpoint, Laocoon’s harm to the horse might indeed have interfered and merited his death; Troy in its expanded sense might never have come to be (and hence pre-emptively ‘destroyed’) if the city of Troy had been saved.
Consequently, one wonders, after all this, what to do about truth and falsehood; about how things are and how people think they are. Laocoon told the truth, and Cassandra told the truth––but people thought they were lying and acted as though they were lying. Sinon was lying, but people acted as though he were telling the truth. We see the power of this particularly easily in that early moment when the Trojans think the Greeks are gone and therefore behave as though they are gone, nos abiisse rate … ergo … soluit se Teucria luctu (25–26). What they think and what they say are is for a long time in this episode more powerful than what is really happening; for the Trojans, the lies they believe seem true and acting on those lies seems to be working … until suddenly their city is sacked.
Even then, we are left wondering whether to grieve the fall of Troy as a catastrophe … or whether to adjust our view until it seems that even utter catastrophe is actually part of a plan, and so perhaps not a catastrophe after all. Who and what should we believe?
Further Reading
Anderson, W.S. The Art of the Aeneid 2nd ed. (Wauconda, IL, 2005) 32-7
Lynch, J.P. ‘Laocoön and Sinon: Virgil, Aeneid 2.40-198’ Greece and Rome 27 (1980) 170-9
Smith, R.M. ‘Deception and sacrifice in Aeneid 2.1-249’ American Journal of Philology 120 (1999) 503-23
Tracy, S.V. ‘Laocoon’s guilt’ American Journal of Philology 108 (1987) 451-4