The ambivalence of the Latin word hostis nicely captures the blurring of the boundary between ‘the outsider’ and ‘the enemy’. So too does the standard Latin phrase for ‘at home and abroad’ – domi militiaeque – in which ‘abroad’ (militiae) is indistinguishable from ‘on military campaign’. Most of the peoples in the peninsula no doubt shared that blurring. To be off one’s home turf was always (potentially) to be at war.
