Ancient Greece — The only complete tragic trilogy to survive from ancient Athens tackles the biggest question a civilization can ask: how do we stop the cycle of violence? Three plays trace a blood feud from murder to revenge to the invention of the jury trial.

Agamemnon is the masterpiece of the three. Clytemnestra is one of the great characters in all of drama — terrifying, eloquent, justified. The carpet scene, where she persuades Agamemnon to walk on purple tapestries into his own death, is theater at its most electric.

The trilogy's resolution — Athena establishing a court of law to break the cycle of vendetta — feels almost naive in its optimism. But Aeschylus knew what violence cost. The Oresteia is his argument that civilization is possible.

Read it in a single sitting if you can. The arc across all three plays is the thing.