But the discovery of a 2,000-year-old Roman helmet beneath a Leicestershire hillside suggests a different story. Rather than repel the invaders, some Britons fought in the Roman ranks.
The ornate helmet was awarded to high-ranking cavalry officers and was found at the burial site of a British tribal leader. According to experts, it transforms our understanding of the Roman Conquest.
“How did it get there? The simple answer is that it was worn on the head of a Briton,” said Dr J D Hill, head of research at the British Museum.
“The old view is 'Romans bad, Britons good’. This discovery muddies the waters. You can’t overestimate the shock and surprise when it was first found.
“This is a major discovery that says we have to rethink the relationship between the Britons and the Romans. It is an iconic object and every book on Roman history from now on will have this in it.”
The treasure, known as the Hallaton Helmet after the area where it was found, dates to around the time of the Roman invasion in AD43. A Roman goddess flanked by lions adorns the brow, while the cheek pieces feature a Roman emperor trampling a barbarian beneath his horse’s hooves.
In its day, the helmet would have been a stunning sight – the ironwork plated with silver and details picked out in shimmering gold.
It was first unearthed in 2000 by Ken Wallace, a retired design and technology teacher who was out testing his £260 second-hand metal detector near his Leicestershire home. “I was extremely lucky,” said Mr Wallace, 71. “It was late one afternoon and I found about 200 coins. But the metal detector was telling me something was iron but not iron. I covered it up and went back the next day. Sure enough, there was a silver ear.”
Realising he had stumbled across a site of some significance, Mr Wallace reported the find to the county archaeologist and professionals were brought in. Under the Treasure Act, Mr Wallace and the landowner were awarded £150,000 each.
The site yielded 5,500 coins – the largest Iron Age hoard ever found in Britain – and the helmet, which had been broken into nearly 1,000 pieces.
Experts at the British Museum were presented with a “lump of mud” and set about painstakingly piecing together the fragments. “It was a bit of a task, but we knew we had something special,” said Marilyn Hockey, the museum’s head of conservation.
The helmet was unveiled at the British Museum yesterday after a decade of restoration work paid for by a £650,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
The identity of the Briton commemorated at the burial site is unknown but the artefacts show that he was an important figure.
According to Dr Hill, British tribal leaders travelled to the Continent to join the Roman cavalry. “We know that the Roman cavalry recruited from outside the Empire in later years, but this is the first concrete evidence that Britons fought on the other side at the time of the Roman Conquest,” he added.
An alternative theory that the helmet was seized as booty can be discounted because it was a symbolic item not designed to be worn in battle. Dr Hill said: “It would be the equivalent of taking something worn for the passing-out ceremony at Sandhurst and packing it in your bag when you go to Afghanistan.”
It is difficult to put a price on the helmet, but in 2010 a bronze Roman helmet with face mask was sold for £2.3 million at Christie’s.
Dr Hill said: “This one may not look like much by comparison but it is far, far more significant a find.
“Before it was restored, it was a lump of rust in a block of soil. When I see it now, my jaw drops.”
Although the British Museum carried out the restoration work, the helmet will remain close to home. It will be displayed permanently at Harborough Museum in Leicestershire from January 28 alongside other finds from the site.