When in ancient times fields were overrun and crops destroyed by swarms
of pestiferous animals or insects, these creatures were regarded either
as agents of the Devil, or as being themselves veritable demons. We
learn, moreover, that rats and mice were formerly especial objects of
superstition, and that their actions were carefully noted as auguries
of good or evil.[456] A rabbinical myth says that the rat and the hog
were created by Noah as scavengers of the Ark; but the rat becoming
a nuisance, the patriarch evoked a cat from the lion’s nose.[457] In
the “Horapollon,” the only ancient work now known which attempted to
explain Egyptian hieroglyphics, the rat is represented as a symbol of
destruction. But the Egyptians also regarded this animal as a type of
good judgment, because, when afforded the choice of several pieces of
bread, he always selects the best.[458]
According to an early legend, the Teucri, or founders of the Trojan
race, on leaving the island of Crete to found a colony elsewhere, were
instructed by an oracle to choose as a residence that place where they
should first be attacked by the aborigines of the country. On encamping
for the night, a swarm of mice appeared and gnawed the leathern thongs of
their armor, and accordingly they made that spot their home and erected
a temple to Apollo Smintheus,[459] this title being derived from the
word meaning “a rat” in the Æolic dialect. In ancient Troas mice were
objects of worship; and the Greek writer, Heraclides Ponticus, said that
they were held especially sacred at Chrysa, a town famous for its temple
of Apollo. At Hamaxitus, too, mice were fed at the public expense.[460]
Herodotus relates, on the authority of certain priests, that when in the
year B. C. 699 Egypt was invaded by an Assyrian army under Sennacherib,
it was revealed in a vision to the Egyptian king, Sethon, that he should
receive assistance from the gods. And on the eve of an expected battle
the camp of the Assyrians was attacked by a legion of field-mice, who
destroyed their quivers and bows, so that, being without serviceable
weapons, the invaders fled in dismay on the ensuing morning. And in
memory of this fabulous event a stone statue of King Sethon, bearing a
mouse in his hand, was erected in the temple of Vulcan at Memphis, with
this inscription: “Whoever looks on me, let him revere the Gods.”
Cicero, in his treatise on Divination, while commenting on the absurdity
of the prevalent belief in prodigies, remarked that, if reliance were
to be placed in omens of this kind, he ought naturally to tremble for
the safety of the Commonwealth, because mice had recently nibbled a copy
of Plato’s “Republic” in his library. Pliny wrote that rats foretold
the Marsian war, B. C. 89, by destroying silver shields and bucklers at
Lavinium, an ancient city near Rome; and that they also prognosticated
the death of the Roman general, Carbo, by eating his hose-garters and
shoe-strings at Clusium, the modern Chiusi, in Etruria. The same writer,
in the eighth book of his “Natural History,” devotes a short chapter
to an enumeration of instances, fabulous or historical, in which the
inhabitants of several cities of the Roman Empire were driven from
their homes by noxious animals, reptiles, and insects. He states, on
the authority of the Greek moralist, Theophrastus (B. C. 372-287), that
the natives of the island of Gyaros, one of the Cyclades, were forced
to abandon their homes owing to the ravages of rats and mice, which
devoured everything they could find, even including iron substances.
When the Philistines took the ark of the Lord from the camp of the
Israelites, as recorded in 1 Samuel iv., a plague of mice was sent to
devastate their lands; whereupon the Philistines returned the ark,
together with a trespass-offering, which included five golden mice, as an
atonement for their sacrilegious act.
In mediæval legendary lore rats figure not unfrequently as avengers.
The Polish king, Popiel II., who ascended the throne in the year 820,
rendered himself obnoxious to his subjects by his immorality and tyranny,
and, according to tradition, Heaven sent against him a multitude of rats,
which pursued him constantly. The king and his family sought refuge in a
castle situated on an island in the middle of Lake Goplo, on the Prussian
frontier. But the rats finally invaded this stronghold and devoured the
king and all belonging to him.
Again, in the year 970, so runs the legend, Hatto II., Archbishop of
Mayence, who had made himself hateful to his people on account of his
avarice and cruelty during a season of famine, was informed by one of his
servants that a vast multitude of rats were advancing along the roads
leading to the palace. The bishop betook himself at once to a tower in
the middle of the Rhine, near Bingen, still known as the “Mouse Tower,”
where he sought safety from his pursuers. But the rats swam out to the
tower, gnawed through its walls, and devoured him. We read also in “A
Chronicle of the Kings of England” that, in the reign of William the
Conqueror, a great lord was attacked by mice at a banquet, and “though
he were removed from land to sea and from sea to land again,” the mice
pursued him to his death.
Rats and mice were not, however, the only agents employed as avengers.
In the year 350, during a long siege of the Roman stronghold, Nisibis,
in Mesopotamia, by the Persian king, Sapor II., the inhabitants besought
their bishop, St. James, to utter a malediction against the enemy.
Accordingly the prelate, standing on one of the wall towers, prayed God
that a host of flies might be sent to attack the Persians, and tradition
has it that the prayer was answered at once. A multitude of the insects
descended upon the besiegers, their horses, and elephants; and men and
animals, thus goaded to frenzy, were compelled to retreat, and so the
siege was raised. The Philistines of old worshiped a special deity,
Beelzebub, to whom they attributed the power of destroying flies.[461]
This same region is still infested with insect plagues; but the modern
traveler, who has no faith in Beelzebub, is more likely to employ
fly-traps and energetic practical measures.
Such are a few instances of the supernatural employment of vermin and
insects as instruments of vengeance; and we need hardly wonder that,
conversely, people in olden times should avail themselves of supernatural
methods in order to protect themselves or their property from the ravages
of these noxious creatures.
In Mexico rats were anciently the objects of superstitious regard, for
they were credited with possessing a keen insight into the characters of
all members of a household, and were wont publicly to announce flagrant
breaches of morality on the part of such members by gnawing various
articles of domestic furniture, such as mats and baskets. It does not
appear, however, that the rodents were sagacious enough to indicate the
individual whose conduct had aroused their displeasure.
The Mexicans had also a superstition that whoever partook of food which
had been gnawed by rats would be falsely accused of some wrong-doing.[462]