of the other Balkan peoples he envisaged would make up his multi-ethnic Hellenic Republic. In his selection of this device, however, he was directly influenced by the Jacobin radicalism of the French Revolution, which utilised the device of the club of Heracles as a symbol of democratic power. The national colours he proposed were red, white, and black, symbolising self-determination, purity, and sacrifice respectively. The club, sewn onto a white cockade, would be the identifying mark by which "free democrats and equal brothers" would recognise each other. This design was never officially adopted. The first official Greek national emblem was described in the Provisional Constitution adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus on 1 January 1822 and was established by decree on 15 March of the same year. The national emblem was described as a simple cockade of white and blue. These colours were chosen as the national colours over more "revolutionary" choices such as black and red, popular in Greece ever since Rigas had proposed them, so as to disassociate the government and the revolution from any perceived links to radical movements in the eyes of the conservative European royal courts. Since its establishment, the emblem has undergone many changes in shape and in design, mainly due to changes of regime. Apart from the cockade, the Provisional Administration of Greece used a seal depicting the goddess Athena and her symbol, the Owl of Athena, encircled by the words "Provisional Administration of Greece". During the governorate of Ioannis Kapodistrias (1827–1831), a new seal based on the phoenix, the symbol of rebirth, was created. The words "Hellenic State", accompanied with the date "1821" (the year the Greek War of Independence began) in Greek numerals, surrounded it. This seal gave Greece's first currency, the Phoenix, its name. The phoenix was also used as a symbol by later Greek non-monarchical governments, including the Second Hellenic Republic (1924–1935) and the junta-proclaimed republic of 1973–1974. Heraldic designs The current coat of arms of Greece derives from the Greek national flag, which was adopted in March 1822. Theories published retrospectively in Greece try to justify this use by making a connection to Byzantine flags and insignia. The 1934 edition of the Great Greek Encyclopedia explains that "the current national emblem of Greece shares this with the last emblem of Medieval [Greece], that it is made up of a cross dividing the emblem into four quarters.