Ebook: Banishment in the Later Roman Empire

This book offers a reconstruction and interpretation of banishment in the final era of a unified Roman Empire, 284-476 CE. Author Daniel Washburn argues that exile was both a penalty and a symbol. It applied to those who committed a misstep or crossed the wrong person; it also stood as a marker of affliction or failure. Like other punishments, it articulated and cemented the power asymmetry between the punisher and the punished. Distinctively, it maneuvered the body of the banished in order to tell that tale. The process of banishment also operated as a form of negotiation between the party.