CHOOSING A SITE FOR EXILE: AN INTRODUCTION

As we have seen from the discussion of the ius exulare in Chapter Two, once an exile left Roman territory, he was free to resettle wherever he pleased, although there were some advantages to choosing a civitas foederata. While there were no legal constraints on the selection of a new domicile as far as we know, historical and political factors did strongly shape this decision. One factor that remained fairly constant in the selection of a new domicile throughout the Republican period was the presence of clientelae and family connections. Such connections to a locality offered many advantages and certainly facilitated the exile's acceptance into the citizen body of his new state. For example, it seems to have been common for Romans going into banishment to return to provinces where they had held their magistracies. In his defense of L. Licinius Murena, Cicero took this fact for granted when he played upon the pathetic image of a former governor returning as an exile to an area he had recently proudly governed: