od 'an
effigy of the mouse beside the tripod of Apollo.' In Chrysa,
according to Strabo (xiii. 604), the statue of Apollo Smintheus had a
mouse beneath his foot. The mouse on the tripod of Apollo is
represented on a bas-relief illustrating the plague, and the offerings
of the Greeks to Apollo Smintheus, as described in the first book of
the _Iliad_.[120]

* * * * *

The mouse is not an uncommon local badge or crest in Greece. The
animals whose figures are stamped on coins, like the Athenian owl, are
the most ancient marks of cities. It is plausible conjecture that,
just as the Iroquois when they signed treaties with the Europeans used
their totems--bear, wolf, and turtle--as seals,[121] so the animals on
archaic Greek city coins represented crests or badges which, at some
far more remote period, had been totems.

The Argives, according to Pollux,[122] stamped the mouse on their
coins.[123] As there was a temple of Apollo Smintheus in Tenedos, we
naturally hear of a mouse on the coins of the island.[124] Golzio has
published one of these mouse coins. The people of Metapontum stamped
their money with a mouse gnawing an ear of corn. The people of Cumae
employed a mouse dormant. Paoli fancied that certain mice on Roman
medals might be connected with the family of _Mus_, but this is rather
guesswork.[125]

We have now shown traces, at least, of various ways in which an early
tribal religion of the mouse--the mouse _pacarissa_, as the Peruvians
said--may have been perpetuated. When we consider that the superseding
of the mouse by Apollo must have occurred, if it did occur, long
before Homer, we may rather wonder that the mouse left his mark on
Greek religion so long. We have seen mice revered, a god with a
mouse-name, the mouse-name recurring in many places, the _huaca_, or
idol of the mouse, preserved in the temples of the god, and the
mouse-badge used in several widely severed localities. It remains (4)
to examine the myths about mice. These, in our opinion, were probably
told to account for the presence of the _huaca_ of the mouse in
temples, and for the occurrence of the animal in religion, and his
connection with Apollo.

A singular mouse-myth, narrated by Herodotus, is worth examining for
reasons which will appear later, though the events are said to have
happened on Egyptian soil.[126] According to Herodotus, one Sethos, a
priest of Hephaestus (Ptah), was king of Egypt. He had disg