Troas, Alexandreia
Severus Alexander 222-235 CE
Æ 24mm, 7,06g
Laureate head r. R/
The emperor on horseback l., saluting statue of Apollo Smintheos
Bellinger A330; SNG Copenhagen 168
Many years before a mouse started a multi-billion dollar entertainment conglomerate, several mice in the Troad hatched the perfect plan. First, they bribed an oracle to convince the Teukri of Crete the settle wherever “they were attacked by the children of the soil.” So, the Teukri set out and one night, while they were camping in the Troad, the mice ate the leather around their armor and their bowstrings. Naturally, they settled in the spot, but there was more.
Seeing the mice as a clear sign, they founded a temple to Apollo Smintheos on the site. There, hoards of mice were fed daily. The thinking was that these were sacred mice, and by feeding them they would not do harm to their harvests. This is at least the story the mice came up with.
So rich did the mice grow from the venture that they even bribed Homer to include the temple in the Iliad. In the book, the daughter of the temple priest, Chryses, is taken by Agamemnon. Filming of the scene took three days and became a major local story.
On this coin, minted much later, we see the statue of Apollo Smintheos to the left, and the emperor (in this case Gordian III) saluting it on horseback. The statue supposedly depicted Apollo holding a mouse, but of course the mouse is difficult to see here.
The ruins of the temple remain, though not the statue.