tion, if
adoration there was of the mouse, would linger on in the following
shapes: (1) Places would be named from mice, and mice would be
actually held sacred in themselves. (2) The mouse-name would be given
locally to the god who superseded the mouse. (3) The figure of the
mouse would be associated with the god, and used as a badge, or a kind
of crest, or local mark, in places where the mouse has been a
venerated animal. (4) Finally, myths would be told to account for the
sacredness of a creature so undignified.

Let us take these considerations in their order:--

(1) If there were local mice tribes, deriving their name from the
worshipful mouse, certain towns settled by these tribes would retain a
reverence for mice.

In Chrysa, a town of the Troad, according to Heraclides Ponticus, mice
were held sacred, the local name for mouse being ~sminthos~. Many
places bore this mouse-name, according to Strabo.[116] This is
precisely what would have occurred had the Mouse totem, and the Mouse
stock, been widely distributed.[117] The Scholiast[118] mentions
Sminthus as a place in the Troad. Strabo speaks of two places deriving
their name from Sminthus, or mouse, near the Sminthian temple, and
others near Larissa. In Rhodes and Lindus, the mouse place-name
recurs, 'and in many other districts' (~Kai allothi de pollachothi~).
Strabo (x. 486) names Caressus, and Poeessa, in Ceos, among the other
places which has Sminthian temples, and, presumably, were once centres
of tribes named after the mouse.

Here, then, are a number of localities in which the Mouse Apollo was
adored, and where the old mouse-name lingered. That the mice were
actually held sacred in their proper persons we learn from AElian. 'The
dwellers in Hamaxitus of the Troad worship mice,' says AElian. 'In the
temple of Apollo Smintheus, mice are nourished, and food is offered to
them at the public expense, and white mice dwell beneath the
altar.'[119] In the same way we found that the Peruvians fed their
sacred beasts on what they usually saw them eat.

(2) The second point in our argument has already been sufficiently
demonstrated. The mouse-name 'Smintheus' was given to Apollo in all
the places mentioned by Strabo, 'and many others.'

(3) The figure of the mouse will be associated with the god, and used
as a badge, or crest, or local mark, in places where the mouse has
been a venerated animal.

The passage already quoted from AElian informs us that there sto