From the opening lines of chapters in A Short History of Europe, by Simon Jenkins, published in March by Public Affairs Books.

It helps to be a god. As Zeus gazed along the Phoenician shore, his eye fell on a fair princess named Europa playing on the beach.

If Greece was founded by a princess raped by a bull, Rome was founded by a baby suckled by a she-wolf.

From the moment of Diocletian’s division of the Roman Empire, Europe moved into a state of transition.

The old imperial heartland of Italy, new home to the defeated Ostrogoths, now lay…