shields; so that on the next day, when they fled bereft of their arms, many of them fell. And to this day, a stone statue of this king stands in the temple of Vulcan, with a mouse in his hand, and an inscription to the following effect: ‘Whoever looks on me, let him revere the gods[1].’”
Among the Babylonians the mouse was sacrificed and eaten as a religious rite, but in connexion with what god does not transpire[2]. And the Philistines, who, according to Hitzig, were a Pelasgic am therefore Aryan race, after having suffered from the retention of the ark, were told by their divines to ‘make images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel.” Therefore they made five golden mice as an offering to the Lord[3]. This indicates the mouse as having been the symbol among the Philistines of a deity whom they identified with the God of Israel.