A Point Of View

With the euro in turmoil, Mary Beard reflects on the very first monetary union, two and a half thousand years ago. And she contemplates the detail of the modern euro coins. "Take a closer look at those heads-and-tails" she writes, "and you'll find some rather disconcerting angles on European history and politics". She decides that it is the Greek Euro-coinage that offers the most food for thought. The bull on the back of the 2 euro coin is, in fact, part of a depiction of a rape. Zeus, the king of the gods turned himself into a bull and snatched Princess Europa. Mary says she understands why the Greeks wanted this scene on their coins. It suggests that "without Greece there would have been no Europe - that Greece had invented the continent". But she's never quite worked out "how the Greek people so easily came to terms with the idea of having a picture of rape jingling around amongst the small change in their pockets". Then she turns her sights to the 1 euro coin, with its beady-eyed owl, an exact copy of a f