him into prison, had him tried for treason, and forced the judge to condemn him to death. The sentence was carried into execution on the public square of Acla in 1517. From a reckless adventurer, Balboa had developed into an able general, an excellent colonial administrator, and a statesman of mature judgment and brilliant foresight.
See G. F. de Oviedo, Historia general . . . de las Indias (1526, bk. xxxix. chs. 2, 3); D. M. T. Quintana, Vidas de Españoles celebres; M. F. de Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viajes y Descubrimientos (1825–1837); J. Acosta, Compendio historico de la Nueva Granada (1848); O. Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde (1865, p. 237), and Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, pp. 442-3 &c.; Washington Irving’s Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (1831), and Varela’s notes on the same in Biblioteca del Comercio del Plata (Monte Video); Ferdinand Denis, art. “Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,” in Nouv. Biog. Gén.
BALBRIGGAN, a market-town and seaport of Co. Dublin, Ireland, in the north parliamentary division, 2134 m. N.N.E. of Dublin by the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1901) 2236. The harbour, though dry at low tides, has a depth of 14 ft. at high-water springs, and affords a good refuge from the east or south-east gales. There are two piers, and a railway viaduct of eleven arches crosses the harbour. The town has considerable manufactures of cottons and hosiery, “Balbriggan hose” being well known. The industry was founded by Baron Hamilton in 1761. There is some coast trade in grain, &c., and sea-fishery is prosecuted. Balbriggan is much frequented as a watering-place in summer.
BALBUS, literally “stammerer,” the name of several Roman families. Of the Acilii Balbi, one Manius Acilius Balbus was consul in 150 B.C., another in 114. To another family belonged T. Ampius Balbus, a supporter of Pompey, but afterwards pardoned by Julius Caesar (cf. Cic. ad Fam. vi. 12 and xiii. 70). We know also of Q. Antonius Balbus, praetor in Sicily in 82 B.C., and Marcus Atius Balbus, who married Julia, a sister of Caesar, and had a daughter Atia, mother of Augustus. The most important of the name were the two Cornelii Balbi, natives of Gades (Cadiz).
1. Lucius Cornelius Balbus (called Major to distinguish him from his nephew) was born early in the last century B.C. He is generally considered to have been of Phoenician origin. For his services against Sertorius in Spain, the Roman citizenship was conferred upon him and his family by Pompey. Becoming friendly with all parties, he had much to do with the formation of the First Triumvirate, and was one of the chief financiers in Rome. He was careful to ingratiate himself with Caesar, whom he accompanied when propraetor to Spain (61), and to Gaul (58) as chief engineer (praefectus fabrum). His position as a naturalized foreigner, his influence and his wealth naturally made Balbus many enemies, who in 56 put up a native of Gades to prosecute him for illegally assuming the rights of a Roman citizen, a charge directed against the triumvirs equally with himself. Cicero, Pompey and Crassus all spoke on his behalf, and he was acquitted. During the civil war he endeavoured to get Cicero to mediate between Caesar and Pompey, with the object of preventing him from definitely siding with the latter; and Cicero admits that he was dissuaded from doing so, against his better judgment. Subsequently, Balbus became Caesar’s private secretary, and Cicero was obliged to ask for his good offices with Caesar. After Caesar’s murder, Balbus seems to have attached himself to Octavian; in 43 or 42 he was praetor, and in 40 consul—an honour then for the first time conferred on an alien. The year of his death is not known. Balbus kept a diary of the chief events in his own and Caesar’s life (Suetonius, Caesar, 81). The 8th book of the Bell. Gall., which was probably written by his friend Hirtius at his instigation, was dedicated to him.
Cicero, Letters (ed. Tyrrell and Purser, iv. introd. p. 62) and Pro Balbo; see also E. Jullien, De L. Cornelia Balbo Maiore (1886).
2. Lucius Cornelius Balbus (called Minor), nephew of the above, received the Roman citizenship at the same time as his uncle. During the civil war, he served under Caesar, by whom he was entrusted with several important missions. He also took part in the Alexandrian and Spanish wars. He was rewarded for his services by being admitted into the college of pontiffs. In 43 he was quaestor in Further Spain, where he amassed a large fortune by plundering the inhabitants. In the same year he crossed over to Bogud, king of Mauretania, and is not heard of again until 21, when he appears as proconsul of Africa. Mommsen thinks that he had incurred the displeasure of Augustus by his conduct as praetor, and that his African appointment after so many years was due to his exceptional fitness for the post. In 19 Balbus defeated the Garamantes, and on the 27th of March in that year received the honour of a triumph, which was then for the first time granted to one who was not a Roman citizen by birth, and for the last time to a private individual. He built a theatre in the capital, which was dedicated on the return of Augustus from Gaul in 13 (Dio Cassius liv. 25; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 12, 60). Balbus appears to have given some attention to literature. He wrote a play of which the subject was his visit to Lentulus in the camp of Pompey at Dyrrhachium, and, according to Macrobius (Saturnalia, iii. 6), was the author of a work called Ἐξηγητικά, dealing with the gods and their worship.
See Velleius Paterculus ii. 51; Cicero, ad Att. viii. 9; and on both the above the exhaustive articles in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, iv. pt. i. (1900).
BALCONY (Ital. balcōne from balco, scaffold; cf. O. H. Ger. balcho, beam, Mod. Ger. Balken, Eng. balk), a kind of platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade. Sometimes balconies are adapted for ceremonial purposes, e.g. that of St Peter's at Rome, whence the newly elected pope gives his blessing urbi et orbi. Inside churches balconies are sometimes provided for the singers, and in banqueting halls and the like for the musicians. In theatres the “balcony” was formerly a stage-box, but the name is now usually confined to the part of the auditorium above the dress circle and below the gallery.
BALDE, JAKOB (1604–1668), German Latinist, was born at Ensisheim in Alsace on the 4th of January 1604. Driven from Alsace by the marauding bands of Count Mansfeld, he fled to Ingolstadt where he began to study law. A love disappointment, however, turned his thoughts to the church, and in 1624 he entered the Society of Jesus. Continuing his study of the humanities, he became in 1628 professor of rhetoric at Innsbruck, and in 1635 at Ingolstadt, whither he had been transferred by his superiors in order to study theology. In 1633 he was ordained priest. His lectures and poems had now made him famous, and he was summoned to Munich where, in 1638, he became court chaplain to the elector Maximilian I. He remained in Munich till 1650, when he went to live at Landshut and afterwards at Amberg. In 1654 he was transferred to Neuberg on the Danube, as court preacher and confessor to the count palatine. In the opinion of his contemporaries, Balde revived the glories of the Augustan age, and Pope Alexander VII. and the scholars of the Netherlands combined to do him honour; even Herder regarded him as a greater poet than Horace. While such judgments are naturally exaggerated, there is no doubt that he takes a very high place among modern Latin poets. He died at Neuberg on the 9th of August 1668.
A collected edition of Balde's works in 4 vols. was published at Cologne in 1650; a more complete edition in 8 vols. at Munich, 1729; also a good selection by L. Spach (Paris and Strassburg, 1871). An edition of his Latin lyrics appeared at Regensburg in 1884. There are translations into German of his finer odes, by J. Schrott and M. Schleich (Munich, 1870). See G. Westermayer, Jacobus Balde, sein Leben und seine Werke (1868); J. Bach, Jakob Balde (Freiburg, 1904).
BALDER, a Scandinavian god, the son of Odin or Othin. The story of his death is given in two widely different forms, by Saxo in his Gesta Danorum (ed. Holder, pp. 69 ff.) and in the prose Edda (Gylfaginning, cap. 49).
See F. Kauffmann, Balder: Mythus und Sage (Strassburg, 1902). For other works, see Teutonic Peoples, § 7.
BALDERIC, the name given to the author of a chronicle of the bishops of Cambrai, written in the 11th century. This Gesta episcoporum Cambracensium was for some time attributed to Balderic, archbishop of Noyon, but it now seems tolerably certain that the author was an anonymous canon of Cambrai. The work is of considerable importance for the history of the north of France during the 11th century, and was first published in 1615.
