The S&P downgrade was intended to encourage political elites to focus on austerity at the expense of jobs and growth.

The Aegean – the ancient Greek word for it meant “chief sea” – is, of course, the body of water Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles and the other Achaeans crossed in their assault on Troy. Odysseus sailed its waters at the outset of his journey home.

In other words, it was Aegean waves that washed the shores where Western history began. And it’s hard not to think of the ancient sea’s destruction at the hands of greed-soaked cyclopean giants of finance as, at the very least, a symbolic end of that history.