The aim of this paper is to show the development of the institute of exile in ancient Rome throughou three periods of its constitutional and political arrangement: the Republic, the Principate and the Dominate. Exile, as an umbrella term, encompasses several different but related punishments in Roman law, all of which include leaving the Roman territory and sending the convict to a certain island, province or place on the mainland. In addition to this, this sentence also produced other legal consequences for the convict, which varied depending on which variation of the sentence was imposed on him, thus making the sentence even more severe. In order to achieve the purpose stated above, this work uses various sources of Roman law and the results of legal doctrine to briefly describe the system of criminal justice for each period within which this punishment and its variations were applied, as well as the development of the institution of exile from the customary practice of voluntary exile that was followed by the imposition of the administrative measure aqua et igni interdictio to its introduction as an independent legal punishment and the further development of the punishments of deportation to the islands and relegation during the Principate and their features in the period of the Dominate.