This pepper pot would clearly have been owned by very wealthy people and it's obviously designed to amuse. Although the face is of silver, the eyes and the lips are picked out in gold, so that as the candles flickered the eyes and the lips would have appeared to move. She would have been quite a talking point at Suffolk banquets - on a table laden with nosh for the posh she is, without question, a bit of kitsch for the rich.
胡椒罐顯然是富人所有,設計目的是為了增加生活樂趣。夫人的臉部由白銀制成,眼睛和嘴唇卻使用了黃金,如遇燭光閃爍,它們就如同會動一般。在薩福克的宴會上,它一定曾是話題焦點。
Britain had become part of the Roman Empire in the year 43, so by the time of our pepper pot it had been a Roman province for over three hundred years. Native Britons and Romans had intermingled and inter-married and in England everyone did as the Romans did. Here's Roman trade expert, Roberta Tomber:
公元43年,英格蘭成為羅馬帝國的一部分。因此到制作這個胡椒瓶的時期為止,英國已由羅馬統治了三百余年。本地的不列顛人與羅馬人混居、通婚,所有人都釆用了羅馬的風俗習慣。羅馬貿易專家羅伯 塔?湯伯描述道:
"When the Romans came to Britain they brought a lot of material culture, and a lot of habits, with them that made the people of Britain feel Roman, that they identified with the Roman culture. Wine was one of these, olive oil was another, and pepper would have been a more valuable one in this same sort of set of Romanitas."
羅馬人來到不列顛時,帶來了大量羅馬的物品、文化以及社會習俗,讓不列顛人感受并逐漸認同了羅馬文化。葡萄酒和橄欖油都來自羅馬,而胡椒是這個系列中更為珍貴的物品。
The Romans were seriously interested in food and slave chefs would man the kitchens to create great delicacies. A high-end Roman menu could include dormice sprinkled with honey and poppy seeds, followed by a whole wild boar being suckled by piglets made of cake, inside which were placed live thrushes. To finish, quince apples and pork, disguised as fowls and fish.
羅馬人十分重視飲食。掌管廚房的奴隸廚師長每天都要為他們準備大量佳肴。一份高級菜單應該包括:灑有蜂蜜與罌粟籽的睡鼠,身下圍著用蛋糕做的吸奶小豬、腹內填滿活鶇鳥的整頭野豬,以及作為結束的榅桲、蘋果和偽裝成魚類或禽類的豬肉。