Passing on to the reign of Valentinianus II., we find that that Emperor issued a coin upon which a round object surmounted by a cross is to be seen in the hand of Victory herself. This would appear to have been the first instance in which what we should call a cross, supplanted the representation of Victory as a small female figure with wings, as a symbol surmounting the round object which we are considering. A similar coin was issued by Theodosius I., surnamed the Great; the last of the Emperors of Rome whose rule extended throughout the whole of the Roman world. The instances named are, it will be understood, the exceptions to the general rule during a considerable period. And upon many of the coins of the Emperors mentioned, as well as upon those of the intervening Emperors, the round object held by those rulers is surmounted by either a Victory or a Phoenix; usually by the former, but in several instances by the latter. The first ruler who caused _himself_ to be represented as holding a round object surmounted by an ordinary cross, was Theodosius II., Emperor of the East. The fact that for a long time the Victory, the Phoenix, and the Cross, were made use of as symbols which might be substituted one for another, is worthy of special note. For the facts that the round object held by Theodosius II. is as often surmounted by a Victory as by a Cross, and that a Victory instead of a Cross was often used by succeeding Christian Emperors, tend to show that the Victory, the Phoenix, and the Cross were allied in signification, and equally connected with the round object the nature and meaning of which we are about to enquire into. The reader may possibly object that no case has been made out for such enquiry, inasmuch as not only did the cross in course of time entirely supplant the Victory, but the round object from first to last, and whether unsurmounted by anything or surmounted by a Victory or a Phoenix or a Cross, signified the world upon which we dwell, the round world, and nothing but the world. Such is, of course, the popular assumption; based upon what we are taught in school books and in standard works of reference. But, as a matter of fact, in many cases the round object admittedly signified an apple; the Golden Apple of the Hesperides: a well known phallic symbol. Whenever a round object unsurmounted by anything is to be seen in the hand of either the Sun-God Hercules or Venus the Goddess of Love, it admittedly may have been, for it admittedly often was, a representation, not of the world, but of the Golden Apple. And not only does it so occur upon a very large number of coins, but in some instances we see the Victory surmounting it; recalling to our minds the fact that victory, as signifying the triumph of Life over Death, had a phallic as well as a martial meaning, and is achieved every time that a man is born into the world as a result of the tasting of the fruit of the Tree of Life or of the knowledge of good and evil.