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BALDE BALDWIN 237 (Minor), a nephew of the preceding, born in (Jades. After the outbreak of the civil war he made ineffectual attempts to detach the consul L. Cornelius Lentulus, an intimate friend of his family, from his allegiance to Pompey. Balbus attended Csesar throughout all the campaigns of this period, and after their termination was appointed pontiff. While quaestor to Asinius Pollio in Further Spain in 44 and 43 B. 0. he greatly enlarged and improved his native city. But his quaestorship was marked by fraud and oppression, and he ultimately fled to Africa (43), and 20 years afterward reappeared as proconsul of Africa. While holding this office he gained a victory over the Garamantes, which procured him the honor of a triumph in Rome, the first ever enjoyed by an adopted cit- izen. Balbus, like his uncle, amassed a large fortune. He built a theatre at Rome, and was a favorite of Augustus. III. Qnintus Lnelllns, a Roman philosopher, of the earlier half of the 1st century B. 0., whom Cicero compared to the best Greek philosophers, and made the expositor of stoical opinions in his dialogue De Natura Deorum. IV. Lucius Oetavins, a Ro- man jurist, probably brother of the preced- ing, and one of those who were executed by order of the triumvirs Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus. V. Titos Ampins, a Roman tribune, who in 63 B. 0. sought to obtain for Pompey the honor of wearing a laurel crown and all the insignia of a triumph at the Circensian and other games, in consideration of his Asiatic victories. He was next an unsuccessful candi- date for the sedileship, though sustained by Pom- pey. In 59 he was prsetor, and in 58 governor of Cilicia. On the outbreak of the civil war he joined the Pompeians. After the over- throw of his party at Pharsalia he was ban- ished, but the mediation of Cicero put an end to his exile. He wrote a work on contempo- rary events, an extract of which is given in Suetonius. BALDE, Jakob, a German Latin poet, born at Ensisheim, Alsace, in 1603, died at Neuburg, in the Palatinate, Aug. 9, 1668. He was a professor of literature, joined the society of Jesus, and became chaplain of the elector of Bavaria. His complete works, including lyri- cal and other Latin poems, were published in Munich in 8 vols., 1729. He has been called the German Horace, and Herder translated several of his compositions. New editions of his Carmina Lyrica and Satraehomyomachia appeared at Munster in 1856-'9, the latter with a German version. BALDI, Bernardino, an Italian scholar, born in Urbino, June 6, 1553, died there, Oct. 12, 1617. He was a fellow student with Tasso, and be- came an intimate friend of St. Charles Bor- romeo, and was in possession of the rich abbey of Guastalla from 1586 to 1611. He was fa- miliar with 16 languages, and the author of about 100 miscellaneous works on mathemat- ics, geography, history, &c., and commentaries and translations. His sonnets and his didactic poem in blank verse, La Nautica (1590 ; French version in prose, Paris, 1840), are among the finest productions of his day. He prepared a translation of the Chaldaic Targum of Onke- los, Arabic and Persian grammars, and Turkish, Hungarian, and Arabic dictionaries. BALDUR, or Balder, in northern mythology, the son of Odin and Frigga, and the most beau- tiful and beloved of the gods of Odin's race. He was the husband of Nanna and the father of Forseti. His home was in Breidablik, the most beautiful part of Asgard, the northern Olympus. Baldur having long been troubled by dreams and evil omens, indicating danger to his life, his mother travelled through the whole universe, eliciting from every created thing a promise not to injure the god. She only neg- lected to ask this from the mistletoe, which seemed to her entirely harmless. Loki, the most deceitful among the gods, and an enemy of Baldur, remarked this omission, and cut from the mistletoe a piece for the point of a dart. The other gods, surrounding Baldur, made proof of his invulnerability, in sport, by casting at him their weapons, with stones and clubs of wood ; but nothing injured him. Then Loki approached and induced the blind god Hodur to throw the dart he had made from the forgotten mistletoe. Baldur was pierced by it and killed. The gods, lamenting his loss, sent his brother Hermodur to Hel, the under world, to ask upon what condition the goddess of the dead would release him. The reply was that he could only be spared if everything in the world would weep for him. All consented except Loki, who had disguised himself as a giantess. The gods then celebrated Baldur's funeral with the greatest pomp. His body was carried to the seashore and burned on his great ship Hinghorni, which was lifted out of the sea by the aid of the giantess Hirrokin. Nanna died of grief, and her body was burned with his. By the ancient Germans Baldur was wor- shipped as the god of peace; other northern nations seem also to have imagined him as a deity similar to the Greek Apollo. BALDWIN. I. A central county of Georgia, bounded N. by Little river, and intersected by the Oconee ; area, 257 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 10,618, of whom 6,774 were colored. The sur- face is diversified. The river bottoms are high- ly fertile, but much of the land in other places is nearly worn out. The Milledgeville branch of the Georgia Central railroad and the MacoH and Augusta railroad pass through the county. The chief productions in 1870 were 3,553 bush- els of wheat, 89,857 of Indian corn, 18,285 of sweet potatoes, and 4,036 bales of cotton. Capital, Milledgeville. II. A S. county of Ala- bama, separated on the E. from Florida by the Perdido river and bay, hounded S. by the gulf of Mexico and W. by Mobile bay and the Mo- bile and Alabama rivers, and intersected by the Tensaw river ; area, about 1,500 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 6,004, of whom 2,845 were colored. The Mobile and Montgomery railroad passes through