In some cases where Hercules holds the Golden Apple-for instance, upon a coin bearing the legend Herculi invicto Aug.—the Golden Apple is surmounted by a Victory.
A coin issued by Constantius Chlorus, the ruler of Gaul and father of Constantine the Great, represents the Sun-God Hercules in the act of plucking a Golden Apple from the famous Tree.
A coin issued in the joint names of Galerius
and Constantius Chlorus, bearing the legend Genio Populi Romani, has in the field on the reverse side a cross, which takes the place occupied upon otherwise similar coins by a star-like object not improbably representing the sun.
Such are the more striking features of the evidence which can be obtained from the Roman coins issued prior to the accession of Constantine to the throne of Gaul.
The reader will have seen that the symbol of the cross occurs several times upon the coins in question, and in almost if not quite every instance in connection with the Sun-God.
The fact that upon a coin of Julius Cæsar, and therefore before our era, a cross admittedly occurs as a symbol of the sun, will also have been remarked.
It will also have been noticed in how very large a number of cases the round symbol which was a precursor of our Coronation Orb admittedly signified the Golden Apple, and therefore was of phallic import.
Another point which the reader cannot very well fail to bear in mind, is that where the Goddess of Love, as the representative of the sex whose felicity lies in motherhood or the
victorious production of life, is seen carrying the symbol in question, the surrounding legend is Venus Genetrix, or Victrix, or Felix, or some variation or other of the same; and that the said legends are obviously phallic in signification.