Pfeffer
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".