Such an interesting coin
type. We've discussed this before
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=91131.0"It is the Sminthean cult of
Apollo (as opposed to, for instance, the Delian
Apollo) that is associated with mice, but we don't know for sure what
Apollo's original mouse-smintheus association was. Smintheus could be a geographic name, from a place in
Asia Minor called Sminthia, which Strabo says is near Hamaxitus, although
Homer places the early cult centers of
Apollo Smintheus in the cities of Chrysa and Tenedos. The Iliad's
Apollo of Sminthos may just be a local
Apollo with no reference to rodents; however, "smintheus" could also be from a Greek word for mouse in the Aeolic or Cretan dialect [Farnell]. Depictions of Smithean
Apollo show the god standing with a mouse under foot. He is also shown with a mouse in hand.
The main effect on the ancient
Greeks of the relationship between
Apollo and rodents was that
Apollo caused and averted plagues. Frederick Bernheim and Ann Adams Zener say, "The god who controls rodents can cause not only pestilence but starvation and defeat in battle as well." If, as Farnell says,
Apollo Smintheus protected farmers from field-mice depredations, he therefore staved off famine, a pestilence. If pestilence isn't close enough to plague for you, famine was often associated with the plague disease typhus, according to G. F.
Hill."
