ANTIQUITY OF THE FANCY MOUSE 9 



These also shall be an abomination to you among the creeping things 

 that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after 

 his kind. . . . These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever 

 doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until even. 



In the Old Testament is an account of a rat or mouse 

 plague accompanied by intestinal disease which was brought 

 upon the Philistines about 1000 B.C. following the seizure 

 of the Israelitish "ark of the covenant." Golden effigies 

 both of mice and of the affected portions of the human 

 anatomy were given as gifts to Y'ahweh in order to appease 

 his wrath. 1 



In Asia Minor. Probably the first recorded instance of 

 the raising and protection of mice by men is in connection 

 with the ancient mouse worship of Pontis instituted perhaps 

 some fourteen hundred years before Christ. Homeric legend 

 (c.1200 B.C.) mentions Apollo Smintheus (god of mice). This 

 cult was popular at the time of Alexander the Great (300 



B.C.). 



During the latter part of the second millennium before 

 Christ, Cretan Teucri invaders landed upon the shore of 

 Asia Minor for the purpose of colonization. For a long time 

 they were restricted to the coast by the aboriginal Pontians, 

 with whom they continuously contested in arms. A decisive 

 victory for the Cretans was credited to the mice (probably 

 field mice), which their Apollo caused to gnaw the leather 

 straps from the shields of the enemy (65). 



Several Greek and Roman historians (1, 163) describe in 

 some detail the temple which the conquering Teucri erected 

 upon the Pontic island of Tenedos in gratitude to Apollo, 

 god of mice. Tradition has it that before the Teucri set out 

 from Crete they had been given an oracle commanding them 

 that where they settled there they should build a temple 



1 Herakles Kornopion, the Tyrian Sun god as well as Baalzebub (harmonized 

 by the Greeks as the Fly god Zeus) frequently bears the mouse symbol. On a 

 Carthaginian votive stone described by Vigouroux-Ibach are carved two mice as 

 gifts to either Baal or Astarte-Aphrodite. Herodotus says that the statue of Seti 

 III within the temple of Ptah at Memphis had a mouse on the hand and bore the 

 inscription: "Look on me and be just!" (100) 



