Pliny: Natural History, Vol. IV

infirmity, and inclement weather shrivels them up and turns the seeds into barren husks, called bregma dead, which is an Indian word meaning dead. Of all kinds of pepper this is the most pungent and the lightest, and it is pale in colour. Black pepper is more agreeable, but white pepper is of a milder flavour than either the black or the long pepper.

Ginger. The root of the pepper-tree is not, as some people have thought, the same as the substance called zingiberi ginger, or by others zinpiberi ginger, although it has a similar flavour. Ginger is grown on farms in Arabia and Cave-dwellers’ Country This refers to the region in Northeast Africa; it is a small plant with a white root. The plant is liable to decay very quickly, in spite of its extreme pungency. Its price is six denarii a pound. It is easy to adulterate long pepper with Alexandrian mustard. Long pepper is sold at 15 denarii a pound, white pepper at 7, and black at 4. It is remarkable that the use of pepper has come so much into favour, as in the case of some commodities their sweet taste has been an attraction, and in others their appearance, but pepper has nothing to recommend it in either fruit or berry. To think that its only pleasing quality is pungency and that we go all the way to India to get this! Who was the first person who was willing to try it on his viands, or in his greed for an appetite was not content merely to be hungry? Both pepper and ginger grow wild in their own countries, and nevertheless they are bought by weight like gold or silver. Italy also now possesses a pepper-tree that grows larger than a myrtle, which it somewhat resembles. Its grains have the same pungency as that believed to belong to myrtle-pepper, but when dried it lacks the ripeness that the other has, and consequently has not the same