Where does pepper come from? When did it become popular in China? Why is pepper popular? How expensive pepper really is.
Which country did the pepper come from.
Pepper is said to originate in southwest India and is said to be from Cambodia and northeast India. But the mainstream view is that in ancient India. Pepper has played a much greater role in history than we might think. As a spice, it is even considered to be the cause of the rise and fall of a country. This country is known as ancient Rome. At the same time, the "geographical discovery" that laid the 600-year history of the west is strong and the east is weak is also due to spices.
Indian spices are related to ancient Rome and ancient Greece, mainly because of Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great of Macedon (356 BC – 323 BC) unified Macedonia and Greece and swept through the Middle East to establish a vast Alexander Empire. After Alexander's death, the empire fell apart and the Governor of Egypt, Ptolemy I, established the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Because, Alexander destroyed Persia, the Middle East bordered India. Thus, in the fourth century BC spices were imported from the Middle East to Greece. Subsequently, the Persian Empire rose, and the Persian-Greek War broke out between Persia and Greece. The two sides have become closer.
At this time, Gaius Octavian Augustus of ancient Rome (63 BC – 14 AD, nephew of Julius Caesar, heir of Caesar) as the first head of the Roman Empire also opened up The Eurasian trade.
In the trade with Rome, Indian spices such as pepper, long pepper, sweet pine, and broad incense wood; China's cinnamon, ginger, turmeric and other spices entered Rome. However, spices in our country are generally not as expensive as Indian spices. For example, the price of the largest amount of ginger is only one-third of that of pepper.
Spice price system
In spices, the price is divided into four grades, namely as follows:
Basic spices such as pepper, ginger, sucrose, etc., although also luxury, are still acceptable in price.
More expensive cinnamon, white pepper, long pepper, galangal.
More expensive spices, mainly from the Moluccas islands of cloves, nutmeg;
The most expensive are ambergris, camphor, musk and crocus.
For example, the price of camphor is almost 3 times that of pepper, ambergris is 5 times that of pepper, and musk is 25 times more than pepper.
Don't look at spices as not a bulk trade, but this kind of long-distance transportation, if you don't bring luxury goods, is difficult to profit. In the trade with Asia by Roman merchants through Persians, the spice trade was one of the themes. For example, spices from India account for 6/21 of its goods, spices from the Arabian Peninsula account for 5/6 of its goods, and Spices from Somalia account for 11/15 of its goods.
And because spices are luxuries and cost a lot of money, the real money and silver of the Romans flowed to India, China, and Persia. For this reason, the Romans were called "to come with gold and carry pepper."
Behind the pepper is the spice, behind the spice is the consumption of luxury goods, luxury consumption brings the loss of masculinity, and ancient Rome gradually lost itself in the hedonistic self
As a luxury, spices naturally have a certain impact on people's psychology. The effect is that people start to go crazy for luxury goods. For the sake of the "money" behind luxury goods, people dare to trample on all laws and morals. In the end, the heart of the country and the heart of the family were lost, and everyone fought for money.
At the same time, as luxury goods became more popular, people became more self-absorbed, more hedonistic, and more crazy for bestiality. For example, the stomach, such as sex, such as the power field battle. This is why the Roman poet Percius uttered the words that made people think deeply: jujube coconuts and spices made Rome lose its masculinity.
In this way, ancient Rome became fragile under the arrogance and lasciviousness.
The madness of Rome corresponded to the Greeks' saying that "If God wants to destroy man, he must first make him mad", and finally fell under the madness of "animality". In fact, this also applies to our Han Xiandi period, foreign customs are popular in the land of China, which is similar. This may be what people call the "crisis of the third century" that tells us, it is one
After the "Crisis of the Third Century", the imperial period of ancient Rome also came to an end.
In 395 AD, the Visigoths in the western Balkans under the rule of the Western Roman Empire revolted, and the leader Alaric took advantage of the opportunity of the Western Roman army resisting the Vandals' attack on Western Europe in 401 and invaded Italy, the stronghold of the Western Roman Empire.
In 408, the Visigoths besieged the city of Rome. The vassals of the Western Roman Empire eventually agreed to "exchange wealth for peace." The agreement promised the Western Romans the following gifts to Alaric for the protection of the Visigoths: 5,000 pounds (1 pound about 0.9 pounds, about 4,500 pounds) of gold, 3,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silk robes, 3,000 pieces of leather dyed bright red, and 3,000 pounds of pepper.
In fact, according to the living habits of the Visigoths, silk, pepper, etc. did not have much effect, they were mainly used by the Visigoths to exchange with other forces. The Western Roman Empire was not safe to spend money to hire Visigoths. By 476 AD, the last Emperor of Western Rome, Romulus Augustus, had "lured wolves into the house", the hired Germans had deposed the emperor, and the Western Roman Empire had collapsed.
Conclusion
The fundamental reason for the end of an era, the decline and even decline of a country is that because of long-term stability, because of long-term peace, because of long-term hegemony, because of the continuous growth of wealth, the ruling class has begun to burn out, they have begun to pay attention to material pleasures, they have begun to pay attention to lust, and they have begun to like to use power in exchange for the stability of rule.
Under "The upper liang is not right and the lower liang is crooked", from the highest royal family to the official class, and then to the common people. Among them, the power of the domestic merchant system gradually expanded, and began to invade all levels and classes, the whole country, the whole nation, and the whole era.
Pepper was used as a "scapegoat" for ancient Rome to lose its masculinity, which was obviously unfair to Pepper. But pepper, a luxury commodity in that era, was popular, and the "spiritual loss" behind it was a contributing factor to the "loss of masculinity".