The Coins That Melted Into Greed Τα νομίσματα που λιώσανε στην απληστί

-From the Meletic Tales.

In the hush of dawn, when the sky was still a faint silver and the Aegean stirred softly against the rocks, Theron cast his net for what he thought would be another day like any other. The island of Aegina, though not far from Athens, remained untouched by the bustle of city life. Its quiet coastal village, nestled between olive groves and the sea, was a place where generations of fishermen lived and died with little more than their name, their boat and the rhythm of the gentle waves.

Theron was known by many people but spoken of little. He was not rich, nor particularly wise in council, but he was steady. His hands were rough with labour, his shoulders broad from years of rowing, and his voice was low and rarely raised. Children liked him. Elders nodded to him with approval. When the catch was good, he shared it without any ceremony. If a neighbour’s house was in repair, he would repair it without needing to be asked. He was in the simplest sense, good in his virtues.

He lived in a modest stone cottage perched just above the shoreline, a home that always smelt of salt, olives and smoke from the hearth. His boat, old but faithful, bore the name Zoe—after his mother, who had passed many winters ago. Each morning, he walked barefoot down to the shore, his eyes still heavy with sleep, and greeted the sea as one greets an old friend.

On a particular morning, when the high tide had drawn back unusually far and the mist hung low over the water like a veil, something happened that would change Theron’s life.

As he dragged his net ashore—nearly empty, save for a few sardines and a single wriggling bream—his eye caught a glimmer beneath a patch of damp sand. Curious, he stepped closer. The wet grains shifted underfoot. Bending down, he brushed away the top layer and found a coin—heavy, rounded, its surface dulled by time but unmistakably gold. On one side, the faded outline of a lion; on the other, a crown of laurels.

He dug deeper. There were more. One by one, he pulled them from the earth, their edges still crusted with salt. In total, he found over thirty, perhaps even fifty, all buried in a neat form as though placed there intentionally by someone long forgotten.

Theron stood in stunned silence. The wind was still. The sea gave no clue. He looked skywards confused.

'Is this a gift?' He whispered. 'A reward?'

Wrapping the unburied coins in the corner of his tunic, he cast one last glance over his shoulder before hurrying home. He told no one of his discovery.

That night, he laid the coins out upon the floor like relics of an ancient world. Their glow seemed to brighten the shadows of his home. He stacked them, counted them, polished their edges with cloth. Sleep did not come easily. His mind wandered down paths he had never considered: a new roof, a new boat—no, two boats—a house with marble columns, perhaps even in Corinth. He imagined himself no longer a fisherman, but a man of leisure, someone whose hands were clean, whose words were weighed with meaning.

The next morning, he did not go to sea. Instead, he went into town and visited the old merchant, who traded in olives, coins and the occasional trinket from passing traders.

The merchant turned the coin over slowly. 'Strange', he muttered. 'Ancient, yes. But not of any kingdom I know. The markings are foreign, even older than the silver staters of Athens'.

Theron’s jaw tightened. 'Is it worthless?'

'Oh no', the merchant replied, handing it back. 'But not spendable here. Perhaps in a larger city… to a collector. Though even then, beware. Some things are old for a reason. Not all treasure brings peace upon one',

Theron left, hiding his disappointment, but the merchant’s words stayed with him like sand in the boot. In the weeks that followed, Theron changed.

He still went to the shore, but he no longer cast his net with care. His eyes wandered more than they focused, scanning the sands as if more coins might reveal themselves. He began to speak less kindly. When the children approached him, he scowled and turned away. When the neighbour asked for help mending her roof, he said, 'I have other things to do that are worthy of my time'.

He no longer brought fish to the elderly, nor shared olives with those people who needed them. He bought himself fine sandals and new tunics, although he wore them only inside. His windows stayed shuttered. His chest of coins—kept beneath the bed—became his true company.

His neighbours began to whisper, 'He no longer smiles. He no longer prays at the shrine. He avoids the sea as if it betrayed him'.

In his solitude, Theron spoke to the coins.'You’re mine', he said. 'You came to me. Not to them. They wouldn't know what to do with you'. He stroked them like a man possessed. 'I’ll find a buyer. I’ll leave Aegina. I’ll live like a king in leisure'.

The coins stayed silent, until something began to shift. At night, Theron dreamt of golden sand slipping through his fingers. Of voices murmuring beneath the sea. He awoke sweating, breathless. The coins, which once brought him thrill, now cast long shadows.

Then came the boy. A lad of no more than ten, barefoot, came to Theron’s door one morning asking to speak to him in person.

'Master Theron', he said. 'My father is ill. We’ve had no fish for two days. Might you spare a bream or even a sardine?'

Theron stared at him, eyes sunken and guarded. 'Fish for free?' He asked coldly. 'I am not your servant, young boy'.

The boy stepped back, blinking, unsure. 'But… you used to—'

'Be gone!' Theron snapped and slammed the door.

He leaned against it for a long time, heart thudding. In the silence, he could almost hear the sea laughing. Time blurred, and he had changed.

Theron became a ghost of his former self. He rarely left the house. His fingernails grew blackened with dust. His eyes lost their clarity. He began to suspect others—was someone watching his home? Would they steal the coins? He took to sleeping with the chest at the foot of his bed.

He paraded himself with a vain look in his eyes, before the others who once had respected him. The coins and the wealth it would bring to his future was all that consumed his mind at length.

Then, one grey morning, as the wind scratched at the shutters and the sea hummed beyond, he awoke with unease. He hurried to the chest. Opened it, and what he saw stopped his breath. There were no coins. Only sand—fine, golden, indistinguishable from the beach on which he’d found the treasure.

Were they taken, and someone had placed the sand instead?

He reached in, heart pounding. Dug with both hands. Sand poured through his fingers, soft and silent. There was nothing else.

He screamed. Tore through the room. Overturned chairs in anger. Ripped open floorboards. Shouted to the skies, but the coins were all gone. What he had hoarded with such jealousy had melted into nothing of substance.

For three days, he neither ate nor moved much, only sat with the chest of sand in his lap. He was broken. Hollow and bitter.

Then something stirred in him—a memory. Of the widow’s gentle smile when he left fish at her door. Of children laughing beside his boat. Of walking barefoot to the sea without fear or shame.

What is not shared is soon lost. What is grasped in greed cannot be held for long.

His mother’s voice echoed faintly in the back of his mind. 'Gold is not the measure of a man. What you give is what you become'.

He looked down at the sand and was stunned—not for the treasure, but for what he had lost within himself. Theron changed once more.

He shaved the beard that had grown like moss across his face. He mended his nets with care. One morning, when the sun was rising just beyond the olive trees, he walked to the sea again. He greeted the waves aloud, as he used to, and set out in his old boat that he had rejected. The fish did not come easily. The sea had grown shy with him, but he persisted.

He returned with only a few sardines that first day, but he walked to the home of the boy whose father had been ill and left them at the front door.

He visited the widow and patched her roof without a word. He brought olives to the elders who had once fed him when he was a child. Word spread and slowly, so slowly, the village embraced him again like one of their own.

The coins were never found. Some say people they were a curse. Others say they were a test, but Theron no longer speculated. Instead, he filled the old chest beneath his bed with notes—letters from neighbours, drawings from children, prayers from elders written in ink and folded with great care.

The years passed. The seasons rolled through Aegina like the waves that brushed its shores—sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce. Theron, grey now in beard and hair, grew into a fixture of the village again—not as the man who once hoarded gold, but as one who had learnt to give to those people in need.

When asked by the younger fishermen about the sea’s changing moods, he always spoke softly, never in boast. 'She listens', he would say. 'She remembers how you treat her. Be kind to her, and she will be kind to you. Treat her with greed, and she will slip through your fingers like sand'.

He no longer needed much. He shared nearly all he caught. The boy who had once come begging for fish now fished beside him as a young man, strong of arm and keen of sight. His name was Metrophanes, and Theron had come to think of him almost as a son. They repaired the ship together, named the sails, and set out before dawn with laughter and shared bread.

One evening, after pulling in their nets, Metrophanes sat beside Theron on the stones overlooking the beach. The sky was pink with dusk. 'Theron, is it true what they say? That once you found ancient gold buried in this sand?' He asked.

Theron gazed across the sea before answering. 'Yes', he said. 'I found it. Or perhaps it found me'.

Metrophanes waited, respectfully. Theron turned to him. 'I buried it in my home. In doing so, I buried my better self. I turned away from others, convinced I had been chosen for greatness. But the coins... they taught me otherwise', he said.

'By disappearing?'

Theron nodded. 'By becoming what I shall become, which is dust. I had forgotten what it meant to be part of this place. I thought gold could make me more, but it only made me less. I have become a Meletic and have embraced the message of To Ena'.

He placed a weathered hand on the young man’s shoulder. 'Gold cannot be eaten, cannot warm your bones in winter, nor hold your hand when you're old. But kindness—Metrophanes—that nourishes the soul'.

The young man sat in silence, understanding deeper than any words could be expressed.

That winter, Theron grew ill. The cold settled into his chest and would not leave. He no longer sailed but sat by his hearth, carving wood and humming old sea songs. Visitors came daily: neighbours bearing soup, children with flowers, Metrophanes always with firewood and salted fish.

One day, the old man asked the young man to bring him the chest beneath his bed. Metrophanes returned with it, expecting the mysterious gold spoken of in whispers, but when he opened it, he found only folded parchment. Letters. Drawings. Notes of sheer gratitude.

Theron smiled. 'This is the only treasure worth keeping', his voice weakened.

When he passed, the village honoured him with a quiet remembrance by the shore. No marble, no statue—only the sea, the wind, and the community he had returned to with a whole heart. He was sprinkled with the dust of the sand of the beach he was fond of its comfort.

Metrophanes inherited the ship, but more than that, he inherited Theron’s way of living and philosophy.

He too became a Meletic. He carved a small plaque into the side of the boat: 'What is not shared is soon lost'.

In the months that followed Theron’s passing, the village of Aegina did not forget him. His name, once briefly tarnished by his descent into greed, had been redeemed through a quiet, steady humility that left ripples in every corner of the community.

Metrophanes, now the most capable fisherman in the village, took it upon himself to live as Theron had taught—not only by casting nets into the sea, but by casting goodwill into the hearts of others.

On the first anniversary of Theron’s death, he gathered the children of the village by the shoreline. 'Let me tell you a story', he said, crouching down near the water. 'It begins right here, on this very sand'.

He told them of a man who once found golden coins buried in the beach, and how those coins changed him—not for the better, at first, but eventually, for good. He spoke of greed, of silence, of loneliness—and then of redemption, of generosity and of a life rebuilt by choices rather than riches.

One little girl asked shyly, 'Did the gods take the coins away?'

Metrophanes smiled. 'No, the coins were never real in the way we think. Perhaps they were made of something finer meant not to be spent, but to be understood. This is why we believe in the fate that awaits us with To Ena'.

He looked up at the sky, pale with early morning light. ''Some treasures, children, are not meant to be kept. They are meant to teach instead. The lesson that is learnt is a valuable one in life'.

Soon after, the villagers began what would become an annual tradition, which was the offering of the sea. Each year, they walked down to the same beach where Theron had found the treasure. Children would write small notes of gratitude and lessons learnt, folding them and placing them into shells. These were set gently into the apparent tide, carried off into the horizon. No priests presided, no rituals—just quiet reverence.

A marble plaque, simple and unadorned, was placed near the shoreline. It read: Theron of Aegina. He found gold, lost it, and found himself. What is grasped in greed slips through the fingers. What is given freely, lives on'.

Travellers came, drawn by the tale. Some sought their own fortunes, digging in vain, but others came to listen—to hear from villagers who remembered the man, to reflect by the sea, to leave something of their own behind.

The tale spread beyond Aegina. Poets adapted it, philosophers debated it. One Athenian orator used Theron’s story as an example in a speech on justice, saying, 'Let us be guided not by coin, but by character—for as the fisherman of Aegina proved, the true measure of a man is found not in what he hoards, but in what he gives away'.

Theron’s story became known not only as a tale of personal change but as an expression of Meletic truth—that life’s deeper worth is not in what we possess but in how we live.

In Meleticism, where awareness of the soul, nature and moral virtue are entwined, his story became a living parable. It demonstrated that one must lose the illusion of control—over wealth, fate and permanence—in order to gain clarity. Greed narrows the soul. Humility widens it. In that widening, we see others. We truly become whole in the self.

This transformation does not occur in a single moment. It arrives slowly, like dawn touching the mountains—first a glow, then a presence. Theron did not simply renounce his riches; he shed the need to possess, to grasp, to define his worth through things. He learnt to listen not only to others, but to the quiet field within. In that field, To Ena—the One—was not a distant force, but the very pattern of all things seen and unseen. Through silence and steady virtue, he came to know that the soul expands through giving, and contracts through fear. And so, in giving up the weight of his ego, he rose. Not above others, but within himself. That is why his tale is told—not for glory, but for guidance. A reminder of what truly remains.

Greed, in the Meletic view, is not merely the desire for more—it is the forgetting of sufficiency. It blinds the soul to balance and erodes the bond between self and others. When one clutches endlessly, the hands are never free to give. Greed distorts the nature of being, turning abundance into anxiety and prosperity into poison. It feeds the ego but starves the self. In its shadow, the virtues wither—temperance, reason, humility—all hollowed by want. True fulfilment cannot be taken; it must be realised. Those people who chase endlessly are never at rest, for they flee from the truth that dwells within them.

The Meletic way teaches that to hold too tightly is to suffocate the breath of the cosmos. Life flows—through soil, through gesture, through quiet generosity. To step into that flow is to trust that sufficiency, rightly seen, is always enough.

Greed is not merely a flaw of character; it is a fracture in perception. It makes the infinite seem scarce and casts others as rivals instead of reflections. It confuses possession with presence, and accumulation with essence.

The wise persons do not condemn the material—they merely refuse to be ruled by it. They walk lightly, give freely, and dwell in the calm joy of enough. When they close their eyes at day’s end, they rest—not in what they own, but in who they have become.

The greed of coins lied not in their metal, but in the meaning imposed upon them. They clinked with false promises—power, permanence, peace—yet deliver none. Those persons who chase their shine often lose their reflection. For coins are tools, not truths, and when worshipped, they rust the soul faster than time ever could.

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