A recession has become a depression in Greece, where an economy run by "a group of gangsters" is hurting all the wrong people. From the past, it echoes cultural reference points from Sisyphus to Icarus; for the future, it suggests what might await the rest of Europe.

"There is precisely zero chance of austerity working," said economist Yanis Varoufakis. "It is the same as thinking you can escape from gravity by waving your arms up and down."