Introduction

For those who were sentenced to exile in the late Roman empire, the punishment entailed removal from their society, their families, and their polities. The penalty of exile was employed to demonstrate to the population as a whole that the behaviour for which the convicted were exiled was absolutely reprehensible. Exile entailed physical exclusion, social shame, and, therefore, a stigma that separated the person from the rest of society. It was not a physical brand but a social one. When the exiled person also had their property and assets partially or totally confiscated or forcibly transferred, they were demoted to a lower level in society, in both their places of origin and exile.

Exile as a judicial punishment, either as relegatio or banishment or as deportation to islands as specific destinations, was a very common practice in the late Roman empire. The barbarian kingdoms of the West also employed exile as a punishment for individuals who were found guilty of various crimes and offences. As in the case of the Roman empire, literary and legal sources constitute our main supply of information on this subject, which make possible numerous studies on exile in these societies.

Several important studies have focused on the extent of Roman influence on Visigothic legislation. However, fewer publications have analysed whether Visigothic kings from the reign of Euric (d. 484) until the end of the kingdom in 711 adopted or modified judicial exile as it existed in the late Roman and early Byzantine empires.