CONTROLLING TRAVEL: DEPORTATION, ISLANDS AND THE REGULATION OF SENATORIAL MOBILITY IN THE AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE

摘要

In her recent article in this journal, Sarah T. Cohen argued that the Roman practicenof deportatio ad insulam – the punishment of exile to an island so commonly foundnin Roman law from the Imperial Era – had as its genesis Augustus’ banishment ofnhis daughter Julia to the island of Pandateria (and a number of her lovers to othernislands) in 2 B.C.1 According to Cohen, Augustus created island exile specificallynto deal with the crisis caused by Julia’s misbehaviour, and his action subsequentlyncreated an entirely new type of punishment in Roman law. While Cohen is certainlyncorrect that Julia’s banishment is a critical milestone in the development of islandnexile, there are several reasons to believe that Augustus’ thinking on the nature andnpurpose of exile had already begun evolving long before he sent Julia to Pandateria.nAlthough no judicial sentence of island exile is attested before 2 B.C.,2 the ideasnunderlying deportatio ad insulam derived more fundamentally from an earlier andnbroader imperial policy – the regulation of elite travel. From the earliest years ofnhis rule Augustus sought to control the physical location and movement of Rome’snaristocracy as a means of consolidating his control over the empire, and the developmentnof deportatio ad insulam should be seen as an extension of this practice.nIndeed, the regulation of elite travel and island exile must be studied as corollarynpractices, since each one sheds light on the other. Historians who have previouslynstudied exile under Augustus (including Cohen) tend to treat the subject as annisolated or independent aspect of Roman law, and therefore have been concernednpredominantly with the legal and administrative aspects of its development. Thisnpaper will take the opposite approach and will examine island exile as part of anlarger and more comprehensive Augustan policy. While Augustus had the raw powernnecessary to subdue any potential rival, he preferred to avoid such open use ofnforce by instead limiting the aristocracy’s ability to organize and mobilize resistancenagainst him. The regulation of elite travel – including that of those members ofnthe elite in exile – enabled Augustus to use geography instead of military force