EXILE. Expulsion from one's native country by government authority for a period or for life; also, residence abroad in a foreign land either under compulsion by law, or voluntarily to avoid some form of punishment exposure to which would follow continued residence in the native land. Exile in the first sense (expulsion) may be either simple exclusion upon pain of death or some lesser penalty. or may take the form of transportation to sonic foreign or secluded land to which the exiled person is confined.
Among the Greeks exile was the legal punish ment for homicide. murder of an alien, instiga tion to murder, and malicious wounding; but it (lid not originally exist among the Unmans, al though the interdiction of fire and water prac tically amounted to the same thing. As a polit ical measure expulsion from the country was resorted to in Greece, and it might involve loss of the rights of citizenship and the forfeiture of property. except in eases of ostracism (q.v.).
At. ROMP the interdiction of fire :Ind water tinterdirtio wpm' et ignis) was the penalty for • such serious crimes as treason, arson, and poi coning; and the accused was at liberty to an ticipate an unfavorable result of a trial by going into voluntary exile. This voluntary exile did not arise as a substitute for punishment at home, but from the fact, that the interdict was a sur vival of a ruder form of justice in which the State merely outlawed the criminal and left him to the private vengeance of the injured parties, which he escaped by fleeing to the protection of foreign lands whither the State had no reason to pursue him. Loss of civic rights therefore, (lid not follow voluntary exile unless the exile was declared to be deserved, or the interdiction was subsequently pronounced, or the refugee be came a citizen of a foreign State. Confiscation of property took place only in extreme cases. Some times the interdict was pronounced for political purposes, as in the case of Cicero. Originally it was pronounced by the Comitia Centuriata, and later by the judicial commissions appointed to try offenses.
Direct expulsion was first practiced under the Empire under the names of deportatio and rele gatio. Deportatio was a form, of banishment to a specified locality (usually an island) involving loss of civic rights and usually forfeiture of prop erty; relegatio was a milder form which did not affect the rights of the man as a citizen. Among modern nations exile survives as a punishment in the form of transportation to penal colonies or settlements, as in the ease of the former penal colonies of Australia and Tasmania (Van Die man's Land) of Great Britain, and the Siberian colonies of Russia (see AUSTRALIA; TASMANIA; SIBERIA) ; lint with the increase of civilization this form of punishment is being abandoned.
The right of an alien to demand and receive protection for his person and property in the country where he resides has always received general recognition, among civilized nations, and aliens who are refugees from punishment for political crimes or mala prohibita and not mala in se are not among the classes included in the treaties for extradition now commonly ex isting between civilized nations. This pro tection, however, is territorial only and extends solely to those aliens within the boundary of the State, unlike the protection to citizens which the State affords at all times and places. Such a refugee is amenable to the laws of the country where he resides, and may there be punished for any acts there committed by him which are crimes by the law of that land: but the fact that he is an accomplice in plots against his native country with others there is rarely considered a reason for surrendering him upon demand, except when the demand is made by a superior power which will not brook a refusal. For further information consult such related articles as ALIEN; EXTRADITION; PUNISHMENT; BANISH MENT; TRANSPORTATION, PENAL; and consult the authorities referred to under ALIEN ; EXTRADI TION; PUNISHMENT; INTERNATIONAL LAW, etc.