[Sca-cooks] Spanish Pepper?

[Honour Horne-Jaruk]

Respected friends:
At my annual "siege cooking" contest at Pennsic this year, one of the contestants included dishes spiced with "Spanish pepper" - a Capsicum pepper, not a Piper species- which she insisted went back to Roman times and was ironclad-documentable to our time period. 
I said I didn't agree and refused those dishes entry. The contestants were very upset with me.
I must preface by saying all new world spices were forbidden because I'm allergic/hypersensitive to them, and Capsicum peppers are high on that list.
However, I now beg the Collected Wisdom of sca-cooks to help me figure out why my contestant thought Capsicum peppers were around in Roman times. Is there some kind of Piper which was grown in Spain by the Romans, or is the whole thing out of whack, or what?

Yours in service to both the Societies of which I am a member-
(Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk, R.S.F.
Alizaundre de Brebeuf, C.O.L. S.C.A.- AKA Una the wisewoman, or That Pict

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