Roman citizens were subject to being "forbidden fire and water." This was often expressed with a distance; Cicero, for example, was denied fire and water within 400 miles of Rome under a special law passed by his nemesis, Publius Clodius Pulcher, and Quintus Servilius Caepio was denied fire and water within 800 miles of Rome and fined 15,000 talents (an absurd sum greatly exceeding the contents of the treasury at that time). If such a person appeared within the territorial limit, they could be killed without any penalty and it was illegal for anybody to give them fire or water.

However, many people also left Rome without being formally condemned to this punishment because they feared that they might be prosecuted, and these were also considered exiles.

The forms of exile varied widely based on that difference (whether subject to a formal mile limit or just absenting oneself voluntarily) and other factors. Titus Annius Milo, living in Massilia after his conviction for the murder of the aforementioned Clodius, describes himself as eating red mullets, a very expensive luxury food. In general, it does not seem that exiles of either kind were forced to live in squalor - Publius Rutilius Rufus, in exile in Smyrna, was offered the chance to return from exile by political changes in Rome, but refused. On the other hand, Cicero wrote to his friend that he had considered suicide while in exile.

People like Cicero and Rufus, who were basically political exiles, could hope to return to Rome someday (Cicero and his wife waged a grimly determined political campaign to achieve this and were ultimately successful). But in general, it seems that exiles were still rich enough to not need to worry about their daily bread - in general, the kind of exiles described above weren't people who had "worked for a living" in the ordinary sense even before their exile.