Relegatio

Relegatio under Roman law was the mildest form of exile, involving banishment from Rome, but not loss of citizenship, or confiscation of property.

A notable victim of relegatio was Ovid.

Origins

Under the early Republic, citizens could be cut off from the community – fire and water – by the ‘interdictio aquae et ignis’; and to forestall this sometimes went into voluntary exile (exilium), where citizenship might be maintained or lost, but property would normally be retained.[1] By contrast relegatio was mainly employed to expel foreigners from Rome: only under the late Republic did it begin to be applied to political figures within Rome.[2]

Under the empire

The emperors made relegatio one of their main weapons of banishment, alongside deportatio. Relegatio might be for a specific period or for life;[3] it might be to a fixed spot, or simply outside Rome/Italy: thus Tacitus describes how one senator “chose the famous and agreeable island of Lesbos for his exile”.[4] In any case it remained a softer penalty than the alternative of deportatio, which generally entailed loss of citizenship and property as well as banishment to a specific spot.[5]

Ovid in his exile made play of the fact that he remained a citizen in charge of his property in Rome, though he was unable either to have his relegatio rescinded, or his exile switched to a pleasanter spot.[6] By contrast, Juvenal (at least in Gilbert Highet’s reconstruction) was subjected to deportatio; and though his sentence was eventually repealed he returned to Rome a ruined man.[7]

Under the later empire, jurists set up a hierarchy of banishments: temporary relegatio/permanent relegatio/relegation to an island or fixed spot/deportatio.[8]

Cultural echoes

Epictetus praised a stoic senator who heard he had been condemned in his absence: “ ‘To exile’, says he, ‘or to death?’ - ‘To exile’ - ‘What about my property?’ - ‘It has not been confiscated’ - ‘Well then, let us go to Arica [first stop outside Rome] and take our lunch there’”.[9]

See also

References
  1. H Nettleship ed., A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (London 1892) p. 233
  2. G Kelly, A History of Exile in the Roman Republic (2006) p. 65
  3. G Kelly, A History of Exile in the Roman Republic (2006) p. 67
  4. Tacitus, Annals (Penguin 1966) p. 196
  5. H Nettleship ed., A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (London 1892) p. 182-3 and p. 535-6
  6. H Evans, Publica Carmina (London 1983) p. 27 and p. 74
  7. P Green intro, Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires (Penguin 1982) p. 19-20
  8. D Washburn, Banishment in the Later Empire (2012) p. 22
  9. Epictetus, The Discourses (London 1979) p. 15

Exsilium

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