In Chrysa, a town of the Troad, according to Heraclides Ponticus, mice
were held sacred, the local name for mouse being [Greek]. Many places
bore this mouse-name, according to Strabo. {108b} This is precisely what
would have occurred had the Mouse totem, and the Mouse stock, been widely
distributed. {108c} The Scholiast {109a} 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' ([Greek]). Strabo (x. 486) names Caressus, and Poeessa, in
Ceos, among the other places which had 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.'
{109b} 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 stood 'an