Balsa
- a town in Lusitania, now Javira, Plin. 4, 21, 35, § 117; Mel. 3, 1, 6.
Rex Ferdinandus
fecit fieri Balsas et navigia de lignis et coriis.
BALSA (Βάλσα: Eth. Balsenses, Tavira), a considerable town of Lusitania in Spain, on the S. coast. It was the first station W. of the Anas, after Esuris at the river's mouth, at the distance of 24 M. P. (It. Ant. p. 426.) It belonged to the Lusitani (Plin. Nat. 4.21. s. 35), or to the Turduli. (Ptol. 2.5.2.) Pliny enumerates its people among the stipendiarii; its coins show that it was a municipium, with the epithet of Felix. (Plin., It. Ant., Ptol. ll. cc.; Mela, 3.1; Marc. Herac]. p. 42; Geog. Ray. 4.43; Sestini, Med. p. 3; Mionnet, Suppl. vol. 1. p. 3; Resendi, Antiq. Lusit. 4. p. 197; Florez, Esp. S. vol. xiv. pp. 201, 209; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 388.)
[P.S]Mentioned by Mela (3.1), Pliny (HN 4.22), Ptolemy (2.5), and in the Antonine Itinerary, Balsa has been identified with a site between Santa Luzia and Senhora de Luz, near Tavira, by many inscriptions and other objects found in the region. The cemetery has been explored but there has been no extensive excavation. The finds are in the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon.
BIBLIOGRAPHYA. Viana, “Balsa y la necropolis romana d'As Pedras d'El Rei,” Archivo Español de Arqueologia (1952) 261-85.
J. ALARCÃO