The Beacon at Alexandria

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She is a woman in conflict with her time. Gillian Bradshaw's acclaimed novel portrays the last days of the Roman Empire through the eyes of Charis of Ephesus, a young noblewoman struggling to escape the narrow domestic straitjacket of convention. Spurred on by her family's attempts to marry her off to the cruel governor Festinus, Charis disguises herself as a eunuch and runs away to Alexandria. It is her dream - a seemingly impossible dream for a woman in AD 371 - to study the arts of Hippocratic medicine and to become a physician...