Gold and silver were rendered sacred and precious in early times by being devoted to purposes of worship. The temples were the safe places of deposit, and in these were hoarded the treasures of the world. Partly from this circumstance it became the case that when gold and silver were first coined, the temples were the mints, and the earliest mint-masters were the priests. Naturally, the devices stamped upon the coins issued under such auspices would be sacred emblems. We find them such from whatever source they came. There was sound policy in this course, as well as good reason for it. If coins were to circulate among people who had previously been accustomed to paying out and receiving the precious metals by actual weight, it was necessary to have the value of these pieces certified to in the most solemn manner. To this end the effigies of the gods, together with the tokens of their attributes and sacred offices, were stamped upon the coin. If we could trace coinage to its earliest use, perhaps to its origin, among the people who lived about the Ægean Sea, it would not be unreasonable to expect to find that at first gold coin was issued under the patronage of Apollo, that silver bore the stamp of Zeus, and that copper coins were dedicated to Aphrodite, as the nearest representative among Greek divinities of that Phoenician goddess who presided over trade in the ports and markets of the East. But among the coins that remain--and some of these are shown to be of early date, they are so rude in execution--we do not find this distinction kept. It is certain that at an early period the emblems of the several divinities were mixed, apparently with a view to giving a more weighty sanction to the stamp impressed upon the coin.