Baltia, Basilia or Abalus is a mythic island in northern Europe mentioned in Greco-Roman geography in the connection of amber.
It presumably corresponds to a territory near either the Baltic Sea or the North Sea, perhaps the coast of Prussia, the island of Gotland, Sweden,William Smith in his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) wrote Baltia was "probably a portion of the Prussian coast upon the Baltic"."ABALUS was said by Pytheas to be an island in the northern ocean, upon which amber was washed by the waves, distant a day's sail from the aestuary called Mentonomon, on which the Gothones dwelt. This island was called Basilia by Timaeus, and Baltia by Xenophon of Lampsacus. It was probably a portion of the Prussian coast upon the Baltic." - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, LLD. London. Walton and Maberly, Upper Gower Street and Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row; John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1854. or of the Jutland Peninsula.Alexander von Humboldt placed Baltia west of the Jutland Peninsula in the North Sea. Cosmos: A Sketch Of A Physical Description Of The Universe, Alexander Von Humboldt, Kessinger Publishing, 2004, p. 493.
Sources Pliny the Elder (HN. 4.95; 37.35-36)
Diodorus Siculus (v. 23):
See also Amber Coast Amber Road Baltic (name) Baltica
References