I know I'm not the first person to observe this, but banishment is a hell of a funny punishment. I now sentence you to fuck off. I don't care where, just get out of my sight. Go on. Git.
Something that I think many of you are overlooking is that banishment was largely a death sentence. Though not because you didn't have the means, or skills, to survive. It's because you became an outlaw. You were outside the law's protections. You could be driven away, robbed, raped, and, of course, killed without consequences by anyone who cared enough to try, or if there was a lucky accident.
The Romans even had a term for this: homo sacer. If you were declared homo sacer you were banned, and you could be killed with no consequences. Your life was in the hands of the gods, after all. You just couldn't be a human sacrifice, though if you died it was the gods' will.
Of course, some people had wealth, social status or some other privilege that kept them relatively safe. Well, as safe as the no-help-on-pain of death could keep them from harm. So not very much.
Of course, there were places you could be banished to, for a period of time, outlying colonies, allied regions, et cetera. If you had skills, maybe some wealth, or connections then you might have a life in the place of banishment, but you were still an outsider, now doubly so. The people in you "new home" might not care for you very much either, and, well, "So long, it's been good to know you," and "Die barbarian scum!"
Some cultures, on the other hand, had refuge, and refugee, communities for outcasts, the banished, but you had to stay in those communities confines, because if you left, you were once again a target. Sometimes the people who you fled, sometimes your own family, put a price on your head.
So yes, it's a funny punishment, unless it's your punishment. You are surrounded by strangers who might not speak your language, and you might not speak theirs. So you have to learn. You have to learn new customs, make a new life for yourself.
Oh wait, I was describing immigration in the prior paragraphs was I not? Best call it forced immigration, then. Something that's been happening all over our world these past centuries. You know, call it banishment, exile, immigration, or being a refugee; or, how about indentured servant, or slave even?
Are those better terms?
For the people so banished, it was a fate worse than death. Historians have reports of people who were sentenced to indentured servitude in England's American colonies for clergyable offenses. That is they were sentenced to death, and needed a priest for last rites. Many chose death over being banished, being exiled.
Is anyone still finding banishment funny? Or was calling it a funny punishment just sarcasm or irony in the first place?
