With respect to the bankers of Greece we have more ample details, some of these being interestingly recounted by J. W.Gilbart, F.R. S., in his "History, Principles and Practice of Banking."

In Greece the first banks were the temples. We read that "the wealth and growing estimation of Delphi had also another source, of which information remains only so far as to assure us of the fact with far less explanation of circumstances than for its importance might be desired. In the general insecurity of property in the early ages, and especially in Greece, it was highly desirable to convert all that could be spared from immediate use into that which might more easily be removed from approaching danger. With this view, by a compact understood among men, the precious metals appear to have obtained their early estimation. Gold, then, and silver, having acquired their certain value as signs of wealth, a deposit secure against the dangers continually threatening, not individuals only, but every town and state in Greece, would be a great object of the wealthy. Such security offered nowhere in equal amount as in those temples, which belong not to any single state, but were respected by the common religion of the nation. The priesthood, not likely to refuse the charge, would have a large interest in acquiring the reputation of fidelity to it. Thus Delphi appears to have become the great bank of Greece, perhaps before Homer, in whose time its riches seem to have been already proverbial. Such then was found the value of this institution, that when the Dorian conquerors drove so large a part of the Greek nation into exile, the fugitives who acquired new settlements in Asia established there their own national bank in the manner of that of their former country, recommending it to the protection of the same divinity. The Temple of Apollo, at Branchidae, became the great depository of the wealth of Ionia." (Mitford's History of Greece.)

Afterward the temple of Olympia, like that of Delphi, became an advantageous repository for treasure. But although the temples discharged one of the offices of banks, by being places of security, yet as they did not grant interest on the money deposited, they did not supersede banks of deposit established by private individuals. At Athens, especially, banking was a flourishing trade, which is thus described by the Abbe Barthelemy in "Travels of Anacharsis in Greece":