Under the early Republic, citizens could be cut off from the community – fire and water – by the interdictio aquae et ignis [it].
To forestall this, they sometimes went into voluntary exile (exilium), where citizenship might be maintained or lost but property would normally be retained.
Relegatio might be for a specific period or for life;[2]: 67 it might be to a fixed spot, or simply outside Rome or Italy.
[3]: 196 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]: 27 : 74 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(at least in Gilbert Highet’s reconstruction) was subjected to deportatio; and though his sentence was eventually repealed he returned to Rome a ruined man.