Pepper received mention in the epic poems of the ancient Hindoos. Theophrastus differentiated between round and long pepper, Diascarides mentioned long pepper, white pepper and black pepper, and Pliny, the naturalist, expressed his surprise that it should come into general use considering its want of flavor, and he states that the price of pepper in his time at Rome was nine shillings and four pence per pound, English money. Both he and Diascarides, as well as Hippocrates, write of the medicinal virtues of spices and of their use in medicine. Pepper has been so scarce at times and so expensive that one pound was considered a royal present, and was used like money as a medium of exchange, while at other times its market value has been very low. In its frequent mention by Roman writers of the Augustan age we are told that it was used by them to pay tribute. One of the articles demanded by Alaric, the daring ruler of the barbaric Visigoths in 410 A. D., of this conquered and greatly humiliated race was 3,000 pounds of pepper. During this dark middle age pepper was so costly that rents were paid in pepper corn, the amount being about one pound at stated times. Even now in places this custom still continues. It is not, therefore, surprising that during the first centuries of the Christian era the common black pepper was prized as highly in the city of Rome as its weight in gold. Black pepper is found in the East Indian Islands, among which may be mentioned the Malay Archipelago, Java, Sumatra, Rhio, Johore. It is also a native of Siam and Cochin China, and it grows wild in the forests of Malabar and Travancore. It is cultivated in some parts of the United States and in the West India Islands.