Piper
πέπερι
Piper (πέπερι) was used as a seasoning both by Greeks and Romans, though not, as far as our evidence goes, among the former before the period of the Middle Comedy, and it is unlikely that we should hear nothing of it in Aristophanes if it was in common use in his time. The Romans probably began to use it after their conquest of Greece. It was brought from India (Plin. Nat. 12. § § 26-29), but by way of Alexandria, where it was transferred from camels and sent by sea to Rome (Pers. 5.136; Mayor on Juv. 14.293). The two kinds of pepper, black and white, were obtained merely by different treatment of the berry (Plin. l.c.; cf. Hor. Sat. 2.4, 74). The pepper-box (piperatorium) is mentioned by Paulus (Sent. 3.6, 86) among vasa argentea. The woodcut represents a small silver piperatorium, probably of the 2nd century A.D. (see Gazette Archéologique, 1885, p. 335) found at Chaourse in France, and recently (1889) acquired by the British Museum. It is formed of the figure of a negro slave clad in a paenula with a hood, having small holes drilled in the head.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.