Devapriyaji - True History Analaysed

புறநானூறு - 99 அமரர்ப் பேணியும், ஆவுதி அருத்தியும்,

  நின் முன்னோர் எல்லாம் பார்ப்பனர் நோவன செய்யார் என்று ஒரு புலவர் ஓர் அரசனிடம் கூறுவதாக உரைக்கிறது புறம் 43. புறம் 99இல் ஔவையார் அதியமான் நெடுமானஞ்சியின் முன்னோர் அமரர்ப் பேணி ஆவுதி அருத்திய (தேவர்களை மகிழ்விக்க வேள்வி செய்த) பெருமையைப் பேசுகிறார். புறம் 166, நான்கு வேதம், ஆறு ஆங்கம் ஓதி உணர்ந்த அந்தணர்கள் அறம் ஒன்று மட்டுமே புரிந்ததையும் 21 வகையான வேள்விகள் பற்றியும் குறிப்பிடுகிறது. புறம் 367 முத்தீ பற்றிக் குறிப்பிடுகிறது.

Ancient times[edit]

Black peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of Ramesses II, placed there as part of the mummification rituals shortly after his death in 1213 BCE.^[23] Little else is known about the use of pepper in ancient Egypt and how it reached the Nile from South Asia.

Pepper (both long and black) was known in Greece at least as early as the fourth century BCE, though it was probably an uncommon and expensive item that only the very rich could afford.

 

A Roman-era trade route from India to Italy

By the time of the early Roman Empire, especially after Rome's conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, open-ocean crossing of the Arabian Sea direct to Chera dynasty southern India's Malabar Coast was near routine. Details of this trading across the Indian Ocean have been passed down in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, the early empire sent a fleet of around 120 ships on an annual trip to India and back.^[24] The fleet timed its travel across the Arabian Sea to take advantage of the predictable monsoon winds. Returning from India, the ships travelled up the Red Sea, from where the cargo was carried overland or via the Nile-Red Sea canal to the Nile River, barged to Alexandria, and shipped from there to Italy and Rome. The rough geographical outlines of this same trade route would dominate the pepper trade into Europe for a millennium and a half to come.

With ships sailing directly to the Malabar coast, black pepper was now travelling a shorter trade route than long pepper, and the prices reflected it. Pliny the Elder's Natural History tells us the prices in Rome around 77 CE: "Long pepper ... is 15 denarii per pound, while that of white pepper is seven, and of black, four." Pliny also complains, "There is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of 50 million sesterces", and further moralizes on pepper:

It is quite surprising that the use of pepper has come so much into fashion, seeing that in other substances which we use, it is sometimes their sweetness, and sometimes their appearance that has attracted our notice; whereas, pepper has nothing in it that can plead as a recommendation to either fruit or berry, its only desirable quality being a certain pungency; and yet it is for this that we import it all the way from India! Who was the first to make trial of it as an article of food? and who, I wonder, was the man that was not content to prepare himself by hunger only for the satisfying of a greedy appetite?

— Pliny, Natural History 12.14^[25]

He does not state whether the 50 million was the actual amount of money which found its way to India or the total retail cost of the items in Rome, and, elsewhere, he cites a figure of 100 million sesterces.^[26]

Black pepper was a well-known and widespread, if expensive, seasoning in the Roman Empire. Apicius' De re coquinaria, a third-century cookbook probably based at least partly on one from the first century CE, includes pepper in a majority of its recipes. Edward Gibbon wrote, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that pepper was "a favorite ingredient of the most expensive Roman cookery".

Ancient times[edit]

Black peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of Ramesses II, placed there as part of the mummification rituals shortly after his death in 1213 BCE.^[23] Little else is known about the use of pepper in ancient Egypt and how it reached the Nile from South Asia.

Pepper (both long and black) was known in Greece at least as early as the fourth century BCE, though it was probably an uncommon and expensive item that only the very rich could afford.

 

A Roman-era trade route from India to Italy

By the time of the early Roman Empire, especially after Rome's conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, open-ocean crossing of the Arabian Sea direct to Chera dynasty southern India's Malabar Coast was near routine. Details of this trading across the Indian Ocean have been passed down in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, the early empire sent a fleet of around 120 ships on an annual trip to India and back.^[24] The fleet timed its travel across the Arabian Sea to take advantage of the predictable monsoon winds. Returning from India, the ships travelled up the Red Sea, from where the cargo was carried overland or via the Nile-Red Sea canal to the Nile River, barged to Alexandria, and shipped from there to Italy and Rome. The rough geographical outlines of this same trade route would dominate the pepper trade into Europe for a millennium and a half to come.

With ships sailing directly to the Malabar coast, black pepper was now travelling a shorter trade route than long pepper, and the prices reflected it. Pliny the Elder's Natural History tells us the prices in Rome around 77 CE: "Long pepper ... is 15 denarii per pound, while that of white pepper is seven, and of black, four." Pliny also complains, "There is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of 50 million sesterces", and further moralizes on pepper:

It is quite surprising that the use of pepper has come so much into fashion, seeing that in other substances which we use, it is sometimes their sweetness, and sometimes their appearance that has attracted our notice; whereas, pepper has nothing in it that can plead as a recommendation to either fruit or berry, its only desirable quality being a certain pungency; and yet it is for this that we import it all the way from India! Who was the first to make trial of it as an article of food? and who, I wonder, was the man that was not content to prepare himself by hunger only for the satisfying of a greedy appetite?

— Pliny, Natural History 12.14^[25]

He does not state whether the 50 million was the actual amount of money which found its way to India or the total retail cost of the items in Rome, and, elsewhere, he cites a figure of 100 million sesterces.^[26]

Black pepper was a well-known and widespread, if expensive, seasoning in the Roman Empire. Apicius' De re coquinaria, a third-century cookbook probably based at least partly on one from the first century CE, includes pepper in a majority of its recipes. Edward Gibbon wrote, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that pepper was "a favorite ingredient of the most expensive Roman cookery".