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
RMS Lusitania Kingdom a war zone, and the German embassy in the United States had placed newspaper advertisements warning people of the dangers of sailing on "Lusitania". On the afternoon of 7 May, a German U-boat torpedoed "Lusitania", off the southern coast of Ireland and inside the declared war zone. A second, unexplained, internal explosion, likely munitions she was carrying, sent her to the seabed in 18 minutes, with the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew. Because the Germans sank, without warning, what was a completely defenceless, officially non-military ship, killing almost a thousand civilians, many of whom were children, they were