In the second half of the fifth century B.C., the wealthy commercial cities on the Mediterranean seaboard had begun to issue silver money under their native kings. The great maritime city of Gaza was among the principal trade centres of this period. Herodotus, _c._ 484-409 B.C. (iii. 5), mentions Gaza as scarcely inferior in size to Sardes, the capital of the kingdom of Lydia. The influence of Athens at this date is strikingly shown by the coins of Gaza, which not only imitate the type and legend of the coins of Athens, but are struck on the Attic standard. On March 20, 1912, at a meeting of the British Academy, in the rooms of the Royal Society, Mr. G. F. Hill, of the British Museum, read a paper on "Some Cults of Palestine in the Græco-Roman Age," from which the following passage is extracted-- "The coinage of Gaza entirely confirms and amplifies the evidence which has of late been accumulating concerning the primitive connection of the Philistine cities with Crete. The name of the great Gazæan god Marnas, who offered such stubborn resistance to Christianity, is probably not Syrian but Cretan. He is the Cretan Zeus, a young god, with a goddess resembling the huntress Artemis for his consort, just as in Crete there seems to be a connection between the young Zeus Velchanos and the goddess Britomartis, who is Artemis. Gaza was a Minoan foundation, and Minos--himself a form of the Cretan Zeus--was worshipped at Gaza, which, indeed, was actually called Minoa."[16] After the capture of Gaza by Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., regal coins were struck there with the frequent monogram Γ͞Α, both under Ptolemy II, Philadelphus, 285-246 B.C., Ptolemy III, Euergetes I, 246-221 B.C., and Demetrius I, Soter, of Syria, 162-150 B.C. The autonomous bronze money of Gaza dates from an era commencing 61 B.C. Of this period no silver money of Gaza is extant. The imperial coins of Gaza from Augustus to Gordian bear two different sets of dates; the first Gaza era beginning 61 B.C., the second beginning A.D. 129. The second era probably commemorates the visit of Hadrian to Gaza.[17] On some of the coins these two eras appear concurrent. These imperial coins, with inscriptions ΓΑΖΑΙΩΝ, ΓΑΖΑ, etc., have usually the addition of the Phœnician letter [mem], from which the Swastica, the characteristic mark on Gaza coins, is possibly derived, the initial representing the divinity Marnas. The Temple of Marnas was called the Marneion.[18]