Gift horse

The indefatigable Iraqi Minister for Information may regularly accuse Britain of being the lickspittle mercenary of an evil imperial superpower. But now there appears to be some historical evidence to support his charge.

The indefatigable Iraqi Minister for Information may regularly accuse Britain of being the lickspittle mercenary of an evil imperial superpower. But now there appears to be some historical evidence to support his charge.

The discovery of a fine gilt-silver Roman helmet from pre-conquest Britain suggests a gift to a local chieftain bribed before the invasion began. Rome was the superpower of its day, and, if it was determined to extend its sphere of influence to take in all-important raw materials (tin and lead), clearly some people thought there to be little point standing up in tribal meetings and declaring Rome's war plans illegal and unjustified. Siding with the Gauls or the Germanic tribes would only have left the Britons sidelined by events and excluded from the division of spoils. Keep in with the big boys and you get a palatial villa in Fishbourne – not a brave motto, perhaps, but a lucrative one.