Some time between the 12th and 13th centuries BC, more than 3,000 years ago, the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, Odysseus, set off from the ancient city of Troy in modern day Turkey to begin the long journey back home.

According to the mythology passed down from Homer, Odysseus and his crew encountered incredible challenges on their voyage.

They were wracked by vicious storms. They were captured by a giant cyclops. They were turned into swine after meeting a witch named Circe (who later fell in love with Odysseus). They even managed to sail to the western edge of the world.

But one of the most famous adventures of Odysseus was his encounter with Scylla and Charybdis.

Odysseus’s journey took him through a particularly narrow stretch of sea; on one side of the strait was a small, rocky island where a six-headed monster named Scylla lay waiting to destroy any ship that dared to pass.

According to Homer, Scylla was such a dreadful monster that “no one – not even a god – could face her without being terror-struck.”

But on the other side of the narrow strait was the deadly whirlpool of Charybdis, which would swallow up the entire vessel and all the men on it.

Odysseus’s impossible task, of course, was to swiftly and stealthily sail right down the middle… to just barely avoid the whirlpool of Charybdis, while somehow managing to escape the long grasp of Scylla.

For a while, Odysseus refused to believe the situation was hopeless; he was convinced that he would be able to sail, unscathed, between Scylla and Charybdis without a single loss.

Everyone who had ever come before Odysseus had also believed the same thing – that they could successfully navigate the treacherous waters. But no one had ever succeeded. Literally every ship that ever tried to sail between Scylla and Charybdis had been destroyed by one of the two evils.

Eventually reality set in, and Odysseus knew that he would have to choose between the lesser of the two evils.

He chose the monster Scylla.

Odysseus realized that sailing too close to the whirlpool of Charybdis would mean losing his entire ship and everyone on it, while sailing too close to the 6-headed monster Scylla would mean losing, at most, six men.

Odysseus concluded that it was better to lose six men than it was to lose everyone.

And that’s precisely what happened; as his ship sailed through the strait, just barely avoiding the whirlpool, “Scylla pounced down suddenly upon us and snatched up six of my best men.”

But the rest of the crew (and the ship) survived the challenge and passed through the strait.

He chose the option that would cause the least amount of damage… and those six unsuspecting crew members suffered the consequences.

This story is one of the best allegories of the state of the global economy today.