10 LABORATORY MOUSE 



to Apollo and worship the "earthborn creatures." The 

 foundation of this temple was still standing in 1902. The ac- 

 counts picture vividly a magnificent marble shrine overrun 

 with sacred mice which were raised at public expense. They 

 describe the altar, tripod, and statue of "Apollo, God of 

 Mice." He stands stiffly in the style of the archaic Greek 

 period. In his right hand he holds a patera, in his left he 



Fig. 3. 



A. A coin of Alexandria Troas bearing the cultus statue of Apollo Smintheus. (Natural size.) 



B. A coin of Tenedos (300 b.c.) bearing the statue of Apollo Smintheus and a mouse. 

 (Enlarged about 3 diameters.) 



carries a bow. At his feet is the huge effigy of a mouse, while 

 a family of white mice have their nest under the altar itself 

 (see Fig. 3). 



A priestess of this temple, Herophila by name, was said to 

 have correctly interpreted Queen Hecuba's dream concern- 

 ing the fall of Troy and the fate of herself and family. 



The mouse cult (56, 169) spread from Tenedos to Alex- 

 andria, Hamaxitus, Larissaia, Parion, Heraclea, Grynaeus, 

 and Chryse in Asia Minor, and the god was even honored in 

 Lesbian Arisba, Methymna, and Magnesia. Record of the 

 cult is to be found in Athens and Thespia on the Greek main- 

 land. In some of these centers it probably continued as a 

 local form of worship until the Turkish conquest in 1453. 

 Thus the Sminthian worship existed for about three thousand 

 years and white mice were cultured in the temples for about 

 two thirds of this period, mainly for auguries. 1 



1 Jamblichos is authority for the statement that mice were employed for augu- 

 ries in Babylon, while Aelianus mentions the soothsaying rites of Apollo Smintheus 

 (100). 



