About Balance Coins — A brief introduction to Amphoreus' local currency, including a historical anecdote.
Balance Coins — The World's Pulse
"Merchants may obsess over profit, but rules are required regardless to maintain balance." — Unknown Priest of Talanton
Balance Coins, the smallest unit of trade decreed by Talanton, as well as their gift to humanity. In the present world, Balance Coins take the form of tiny gravel-like weights that can be mixed into bigger weights with any amount like clay. It is because of this that a single Balance Coin simply can't be carried, and trade between city-states requires dromas transportation to move obscene weights of currency. But no one can deny that this linear calculation method is indeed very "fair."
The history of Balance Coins can be traced back to the ancient Era Chrysea's nascent period. Before that, city-states bartered using objects of Titan worship, such as shells, feathers, redsoil clay blocks, etc. As the city-states' supplies became more abundant, along with increasing demand for inter-city trade, merchants urgently needed some common equivalent as a medium of exchange. Gold, silver, and other precious metals came into the picture — rare in production quantity, stable in value, and effective in reducing friction during trade. From that point on, trade among the various city-states gradually gravitated towards precious metals. But even the face value of the lightest copper coin far exceeded the cost of one stalk of vegetable, and this brought much inconvenience to the commonfolk.
During the economic development of the various city-states, many precious metals streamed into the market each year. We know that the expansion of an economy's scale relies on the support of even more currency. A wealthy merchant and city lord by the name of Midas devised a devious plan exploiting this very concept: What if I possessed all the world's gold? Wouldn't my city-state be unrivaled? He prayed to a certain Titan (some opine that it was Georios, some thought it was Zagreus, and others thought the patron god was Phagousa, but this remains a subject of great debate to this day), attaining the ability to control mineral resources using sinister rituals, and consolidated the entirety of Amphoreus' precious metal deposits in the mountains of his domain. He then announced this circumstance, demanding the other city-states to bend the knee, or there would be a dearth of future precious metals.
Even so, history always finds a way. After precious metal was monopolized, the city-states did not cease their daily trade — Phagousa's city gathered shells, Georios' city gathered stones, Aquila's city bundled feathers... The people once again returned to the days of barter, and life went on as usual — it was only inter-city trade that was untenable. The irony was that these sundries were portable and plentiful, increasing people's enthusiasm in trade.
To quell this farce, Talanton overturned the scale, turning bountiful gravel into weights enchanted with divinity, and established it as the common currency across all city-states, which are the Balance Coins of today — encompassing both the benefits and drawbacks of goods and precious metals. With the Scale of Justice being the most trustworthy, with the god's personal guarantee, inter-city trade was very quickly restored. Midas went increasingly mad when he was besieged by Castrum Kremnos, and eventually turned into a statue of pure gold.