[64]
Now the story of the Teucrians and the mice—whence the epithet "Sminthian,"1 since "sminthi" means "mice"—must be transferred to this place. And writers excuse this giving of epithets from small creatures by such examples as the following: It is from locusts,2 they say, which the Oetaeans call "cornopes," that Heracles is worshipped among the Oetaeans as "Cornopion," for ridding them of locusts; and he is worshipped among the Erythraeans who live in Mimas as "Ipoctonus,"3 because he is the destroyer of the vine-eating ips;4 and in fact, they add, these are the only Erythraeans in whose country this creature is not to be found. And the Rhodians, who call erysibe5 "erythibe," have a temple of Apollo "Erythibius" in their country; and among the Aeolians in Asia a certain month is called Pornopion, since the Boeotians so call the locusts, and a sacrifice is offered to Apollo Pornopion.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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