纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 040银色霍克森胡椒瓶(2)（在线收听）

Today, I'm back with the Romans, in what they might have called the Far West, what we think of as Suffolk.

我们如今称为萨福克的地区，对罗马人来说算是远西，它是罗马的西部边陲。

We are around the year 400, and in England centuries of unprecedented peace and prosperity are about to end in chaos. Across Western Europe the Roman Empire is fragmenting into a series of failed states, and in Britain the Roman leadership is conducting a phased withdrawal. At moments like this it is tricky to be rich. There was no longer any organised military or civil force to protect them or their possessions, and as they fled, they left behind them some of the finest treasure ever found. Our object belongs to a fabulous collection of gold and silver buried in a field at Hoxne, Suffolk, around 410, and found nearly 1,600 years later...in 1992.

公元400年左右，不列颠几百年来的和平与繁荣即将结束于一场混乱。罗马帝国在西欧四分五裂，在英格兰的影响力也逐渐减弱。在动荡时期，富人的处境十分危险，不再有军队来保护他们的财产，因此，他们逃亡时留下了极为珍贵的宝藏。本文中的物品便是在公元410年左右埋藏在萨福克霍克森地区的金银财宝中的一件，1992年，它在藏1600余年后终于重见天日。

I'm holding a small statue of the upper half of a Roman matron, wearing very elaborate clothes and long dangly earrings. Her hair is fantastically complicated, it's twisted and plaited in an elaborate "up-do", and she is obviously a seriously 'grande dame' and very, very fashionable. She's about three inches high, so the size of a silver pepper pot - and indeed that is exactly what she is-a silver pepper pot. When I pick it up I can see that on the underside there is a clever mechanism which allows you to determine how much pepper will come out. You turn the handle and you can either close it completely, have it fully open, or in a kind of sprinkling mode.

我手里拿着的就是这样一尊看起来就像是一位罗马夫人的半身雕像，眼饰华美，挂着长耳环，发式精巧繁复，发辫盘在头顶。一望即知，这是位庄重的贵妇，衣着入时。雕像高约8厘米，大小如同一个胡椒罐。而它也恰恰就是一个银制胡椒罐，底部有精巧机关，可以控制胡椒的倒出量。只要扭动把手，就可以选择全开、全闭或半开。