The Ptolemaic era, Egypt’s last and one of its longest dynasties, was in many ways a gilded age. Its early rulers restored and even expanded Egyptian power. Over a span of 300 years the period was witness to intellectual enlightenment, imaginative state-building, and some of the most memorable characters in ancient history, including Alexander the Great and Cleopatra VII.

But these Macedonian Greek pharaohs embarked on ruinous warfare, faced rebellion, and descended into murderous family feuds. Increasingly reliant on the dizzying rise of Roman power, Ptolemaic Egypt was finally annexed by Augustus in 30 BCE. How did such an ancient civilization come to this?

Exploring the lives of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, de la Bédoyère reveals the jealousy, greed, and murderous ambition in their Egypt and the legendary city of Alexandria, their capital. This is a lively, accessible account of Ancient Egypt’s last days-and of the new power rising in its place.

A collection of the most personal aspects of Samuel Pepys’ diaries, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of their publication

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is the most celebrated personal journal in the English language. His candid revelations as he forged his career as a civilian naval official in Restoration London have fascinated readers ever since the first selection was published in 1825.

The Confessions of Samuel Pepys focuses on Pepys’s controversial private life for a contemporary readership, by charting his varied and complex relationships with women. They included his wife Elizabeth whom he both loved and treated abominably, their domestic servants, the mistresses whom he secretly visited in Westminster and Deptford and other places, a host of other opportunistic encounters, the great ladies of the court whom he ogled, and the actresses and other female friends whose company he delighted in and combined with casual flirting and petting. All these he recounted in shorthand, often disguising the more salacious occasions in his own cryptic Franco-Latino polyglot or with a primitive system of extraneous consonants.

Most of these controversial entries were excised from 19th century editions, but all are featured here in completely new transcriptions and Pepys’s secret code translated, following fresh forensic examination, from the original shorthand diary. The Confessions of Samuel Pepys also reveals how all previous transcribers of the diary and many of his biographers have deliberately massaged Pepys’s reputation.

The Ptolemaic era, Egypt’s last and one of its longest dynasties, was in many ways a gilded age. Its early rulers restored and even expanded Egyptian power. Over a span of 300 years the period was witness to intellectual enlightenment, imaginative state-building, and some of the most memorable characters in ancient history, including Alexander the Great and Cleopatra VII.

But these Macedonian Greek pharaohs embarked on ruinous warfare, faced rebellion, and descended into murderous family feuds. Increasingly reliant on the dizzying rise of Roman power, Ptolemaic Egypt was finally annexed by Augustus in 30 BCE. How did such an ancient civilization come to this?

Exploring the lives of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, de la Bédoyère reveals the jealousy, greed, and murderous ambition in their Egypt and the legendary city of Alexandria, their capital. This is a lively, accessible account of Ancient Egypt’s last days-and of the new power rising in its place.

Gladius takes the reader right into the heart of what it meant to be a part of the Roman army through the words of Roman historians, and those of the men themselves through their religious dedications, tombstones, and even private letters and graffiti. Guy de la Bédoyère throws open a window on how the men, their wives and their children lived, from bleak frontier garrisons to guarding the emperor in Rome, enjoying a ringside seat to history fighting the emperors’ wars, mutinying over pay, marching in triumphs, throwing their weight around in city streets, and enjoying esteem in honorable retirement.