It has taken us long to reach the Sacred Mice of Greek religion, but we are now in a position to approach their august divinity. We have seen that the sun-worship superseded, without abolishing, the tribal _pacarissas_ in Peru, and that the _huacas_, or images, of the sacred animals were admitted under the roof of the temple of the Sun. Now it is recognised that the temples of the Sminthian Apollo contained images of sacred mice among other animals, and our argument is that here, perhaps, we have another example of the Peruvian religious evolution. Just as, in Peru, the tribes adored 'vile and filthy' animals, just as the solar worship of the Incas subordinated these, just as the _huacas_ of the beasts remained in the temples of the Peruvian Sun; so, we believe, the tribes along the Mediterranean coasts had, at some very remote prehistoric period, their animal _pacarissas_; these were subordinated to the religion (to some extent solar) of Apollo; and the _huacas_, or animal idols, survived in Apollo's temples. * * * * * If this theory be correct, we shall probably find the mouse, for example, revered as a sacred animal in many places. This would necessarily follow, if the marriage customs which we have described ever prevailed on Greek soil, and scattered the mouse-name far and wide.[115] Traces of the Mouse families, and of adoration, 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 (2) The mouse-name would be given locally to the god who superseded the mouse.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 σμίνθος. 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' (Καὶ ἀλλόθι δε πολλαχόθι). 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.