LAOAG, la-wag'. The capital of the Province of llocos Norte (q.v.), Philippines (Map: Philip pine Islands, E 1). It is situated in a fertile plain. in the northwestern part of Luzon, on the right bank of the Laoag or Pagsfin River, five and one-half miles from the sea. Its houses are fur the most part well built, especially the town hall and the church; it has a telegraph station, and is the projected terminus of a railroad front Manila. Population, in 1898, 37,094.
LAOCOoN, la-ok'o-on (Lat., from Gk. Aao K6cov, Laokoon). According to classic legend. a priest of Apollo in Troy, who in vain warned his countrymen against receiving within their walls the wooden horse. According to the ver sion given by Vergil in the .Eneid, two serpents then came swimming from Tenedos, attacked the two sons of Laocolin, and, when the father came to their help, destroyed him also. There are many traces of earlier versions; in one only the sons are killed, and the serpents are sent by Apollo as a warning to sEneas; in another destruction falls on the father and one son. The story is not noticed in the Homeric poems, hut was told in the later epic, and was the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles. It acquires a peculiar interest from being the subject of one of the best-known works of ancient sculpture still in existence: a group discovered in 1506 at Rome, in the Sege Sale, on the side of the Esquiline Bill, and purchased by Pope Julius II. for the
Vatican. The whole treatment of the subject, the anatomical accuracy of the figures. and the representation both of bodily pain and of pas sion, have secured for the group a higher place than it properly merits. According to Pliny. it was the work of the Rhodian.artists Ages:m(1er. Polydorus, and Athenodorus. Archeologists differ as to the date to be assigned. Some inter pret the words of Pliny as indicating that it was made in the reign of Titus; the majority, how ever, agree that it is a work of the Rhodian School, which flourished before the Christian Era, and recent opinions, based on a comparison with the at Pergainus, and the evidence of inscriptions containing the artist's signature of Athenodoru,, incline to date the group toward the end of the second century B.C. 111 spite of its wonderful execution. this group is not an example of the best Greek work, but belongs to a period of low artistic ideals. For an ursthetic exposition of its merits, consult Les sing. Lookoon odcr fiber die Grenz•n der tlalerei end Poeir. especially in the second edition by Bliimner (Berlin, 1880), where the earlier litera ture is cited; also Robert, MN and Lied (Berlin, 1881) ; Kekule, Zur Denteng end Zeitbestini Meng des Laokoon (Stuttgart, 1883 ) ; and Ffirster, in the l'erhandlungen der virrzigsten Philologencersammlang zu Gorlitz (Leipzig, 1890).