ABSTRACT
What it means to be out of place in terms of rights, belonging, and protection depends on the temporal and sociopolitical context in which the condition exists. It also depends on whether the out-of-placeness is understood from the perspective of the authorities, or from those who experience it firsthand, often through a combination of forced uprooting and compromised mobility. These perspectives frame an investigation into what being out of place meant prior to the advent of the nation-state by drawing on scenarios from two different points in antiquity: the fifth-century BCE Classical Greek polis and the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. This chapter articulates how human mobility was positioned in a world where state territory was not circumscribed and boundaries were differently conceived, lacking a clear physical presence. This means that rates of mobility are difficult to capture, not least because they were of little interest in and of themselves, yet what evidence there is suggests they were relatively high. Through a number of case studies, as exemplified in the Greek tragedies and the ransom of captives by Late Roman bishops, these perspectives expose how value is drawn from the condition of bodies being out of place in negotiations of power and identity formation.
