[Cincinatus]

The Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. Start with the first book, Flashman (1969):

There are 11 others after this one. Great fun, great history, great reading.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I’ll second Flashman. Reasonably good history, bawdy, and featuring a top of the line anti-hero.

For really light fare, you can’t go wrong with the Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester. Napoleonic era swashbuckling.

If you want more of the same, but the very grown up version, the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian had fans in the Naval War College and Charlton Heston.

One great novel that few today know about is The Long Ships, by the Swedish writer Frans G. Bengtsson. Total Viking-era romance, and a hypnotically good read.