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Mousers In Egypt1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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When Erysichthon, son of Triopas, persisted in felling trees in a grove sacred to Demeter the goddess inflicted on him an insatiable appetite, the consequences of which are brilliantly recounted by Callimachus in his sixth Hymn. Among them is a vain appeal from Triopas to his father Poseidon either to cure or else to feed his grandson, who has devoured the mules, the heifer which his mother was rearing for sacrifice, the racehorse, and the charger, 
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1967
References
page 195 note 2 
and 
are corrections of 
and 
but are not open to doubt.
page 195 note 3 Id. 26. 1, where see my note.
page 196 note 1 Accounts of the mongoose in antiquity will be found in Wiedemann's note on Hero dotus, loc. cit. (H.s. zweites Buck, p. 288Google Scholar), Mair's on Opp. Cyn. 3. 407, Keller, , Ant. Tierwelt i. 158Google Scholar, RE Suppl. 8. 233, Wilkinson, J. G., Manners and Customs of the Egyptians 2 iii. 279Google Scholar; cf. Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1932, 393.Google Scholar
page 196 note 2 According to Strab. 17.812, Ael.N.A. 10. 47, Clem., Al. Protr. 34Google Scholar P., the mongoose was worshipped at Heracleopolis, somewhat to the south of the Fayûm, where Wilkinson reported mongooses as particularly common. Cicero (Nat. D. 1. 101) mentions the cult without localizing it and it is plain from the Egyptian evidence that it was widespread; see E. Brunner-Traut, Spitzmaus u. Ichneumon als Tiere d. Sonnengottes (Gött. Nachr., 1965, 7. 123).Google Scholar
page 196 note 3 Diodorus (1. 83) says that Egyptians at tracted cats and mongooses 
and fed them on bread and milk or fish. It was probably in Asia that Craterus, Alexander's general, met with an accident when he and his friends were 
which was presumably domesticated (Plut, . Vit. Alex. 41).Google Scholar
page 196 note 4 Cambridge Nat. History x. 409Google Scholar, Anderson, , Zool. of Egyptian Mammalia, 190.Google Scholar
page 196 note 5 P. Land. 904 of A.D. 104 contains two letters, apparently from Alexandria, concerning a consignment of twenty-four 
(one of which has died) dispatched by agovernor 
in the western Fayûm (see n. 2 above). Martial (7.87) gives a list of unusual pets and their owners, among them Marius, who has a perniciosus ichneumon. There are mongooses in Andalusia, and it is conceivable, though perhaps unlikely, that Marius was not a Roman but a Spanish compatriot of the poet.Google Scholar
page 196 note 6 e.g. Stephanus, s.v. 
cf. Ann. des Sciences Nat. xvii. 175.Google Scholar
page 196 note 7 Ant. Tierwelt, p. 195.Google Scholar
page 196 note 8 Kulturpflanzen u. Hausthiere6, p. 450. I understand however that there are no martens in Egypt.Google Scholar
page 196 note 9 Nicander, (Ther. 195) says that the (Egyptian) mongoose is shaped like an tuns (probably marten). Kipling's Indian Rikki-tikki-tavi was ‘rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits’. Ichneumia albicauda is somewhat less weasel-like than these.Google Scholar