Balsa (Roman town) Balsa (Roman town) Balsa was a Roman coastal town in the province of Lusitania, Conventus Pacensis (capital Pax Julia). The modern location is in the rural estates of Torre d'Aires, Antas and Arroio, parish of Luz de Tavira, county of Tavira, district of Faro, in Algarve, Southern Portugal. Balsa is a pre-Roman place-name with a probable Phoenician etymology: "B'LŠ...", a possible theonym connected with the older Phoenician occupation of neighbouring Tavira. It is mentioned by Pomponius Mela (DC III 1, 7), Pliny (HN IV 35, 116), Ptolemy (GH: II 5, 2), and Marcianus of Heracleia (PME: II, 13). Mints bronze
Claudius, Duke of Lusitania the Franks and routed them, killing 5,000 and capturing 2,000, as well as their camp. According to Isidore of Seville, "nulla umquam in Hispaniis Gothorum uictoria uel maior in bello vel similis extitit": "No victory of the Goths in Spain was ever greater or even equal to it." The chronicler John of Biclarum, with even more excitement, exaggerated his figures to make Claudius, the next Gideon, defeat 60,000 Franks (the evil Midianites in the biblical metaphor) with merely 300 men. Claudius, Duke of Lusitania Claudius was a Hispano-Roman Catholic "dux" (duke) of Lusitania (or "dux Emeretensis civitatis") in the late