Smintheus

I came across a particularly Smintheus-dense passage in Strabo's
Geography
13.1.48
"
In this Chrysa is also the temple of Sminthian Apollo; and the symbol
which preserves the etymology of the name, I mean the mouse, lies
beneath the foot of his image. These are the works of Scopas of
Paros; and also the history, or myth, about the mice is associated
with this place: When the Teucrians arrived from Crete (Callinus the
elegiac poet was the first to hand down an account of these people,
and many have followed him), they had an oracle which bade them
to "stay on the spot where the earth-born should attack them"; and,
he says, the attack took place round Hamaxitus, for by night a great
multitude od field-mice swarmed out of the ground and ate up all the
leather in their arms and equipment; and the Teucrians remained
there; and it was they who gave its name to Mt. Ida, naming it after
the mountain in Crete. Heracleides of Pontus says that the mice which
swarmed round the temple were regarded as sacred, and that for this
reason the image was designed with its foot upon the mouse. Others
saty that a certain Teucer came from the deme of Troes, now called
Xypoteones, in Attica, but that no Teucrians came from Crete. As a
futher sign of the close relationship of the Trojans with the people
of Attica they record the fact that Erichthonius was one of the
original founders in both tribes. Now this is the account of the more
recent writers; but more in agreement with Homer are the traces to be
seen in the plain of Thebë and in the Chrysa which was once founed
there, which I shall soon discuss. The name of Smintheus is used in
many places, for in the neighborhood of Hamaxitus itself, apart from
the Smintheum at the temple, there are two places called Sminthia ;
and there are others in the neighboring territory of Larisa. And also
in the territory of Parium there is a place called Sminthia, and also
in Rhodes and in Lindus and in many other places. And they now call
the temple Sminthium.
...
"

Torsten