this is currently residing by my bedside
The Histories - by Herodotus,
a translation of course ...
I must confess that I got this book a year back at a second hand bookshop ...
and I dug it out because this anecdotes from this book was described in Michael Ondaatje's " The English Patient" ...
the part about candules and his wifey gyges turned out to be right at beginning of the book, but the rest of the book is intriguing enough for me to continue to plow through ...