For thousands of years western Europeans have been entranced by the spices of the east. Long before curry became the British national dish, we dreamed of transforming our dull island food with exotic flavours from India. For the poet George Herbert, the phrase "the land of spices" evoked a metaphorical perfection at once unimaginably remote and infinitely desirable. So it's perhaps not surprising that spice has, through the centuries, always been not just high poetry but big business. The spice trade between the Far East and Europe funded the Portuguese and Dutch empires and provoked many bloody wars. Already at the beginning of the fifth century, it was a trade that embraced the whole of the Roman Empire. When in 408 barbarian Visigoths attacked the city of Rome, they were induced to leave only on the payment of a huge ransom that included gold, silver, large quantities of silk and one further luxury, a ton of pepper. This precious spice had made its lucrative way all over the Roman Empire, from India to East Anglia. And that's where this programme's object was found.