The
Balearic Islands (
Catalan and official:
Illes Balears;
Spanish:
Islas Baleares) are an
archipelago in the western
Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the
Iberian Peninsula.
The four largest islands are (from largest to smallest):
Majorca,
Minorca,
Ibiza, and
Formentera. The archipelago forms an
autonomous community and a
province of
Spain, of which the capital city is
Palma. The co-official languages in the Balearic Islands are
Spanish and
Catalan (i.e.
Mallorquí, Menorquí and Eivissenc, as Catalan is known by its speakers in this territory).
Geography, politics and culture
The main islands of the autonomous community are Majorca (
Mallorca), Ibiza (
Eivissa) and
Formentera, all of which are popular tourist destinations. Among the minor islands is
Cabrera, which is the location of the
Parc Nacional de l'Arxipèlag de Cabrera. The islands can be further grouped, with Majorca, Minorca, and Cabrera as the
Gymnesian Islands, and Ibiza and Formentera as the
Pine Islands.
Etymology
The Balearic islands () have two names in different languages: , ; , ;
Greek:
Gymnesiae and
Balliareis ; .
There are various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands – Gymnasiae and Baleares. Two survive in classical sources.
According to the
Lycophron's Alexandra verses, the islands were called Gymnesiae (
gymnos - γυμνός means
naked in Greek) because its inhabitants were often nude, probably because of the year-long benevolent climate.
The Greek and Roman writers generally derive the name of the people from their skill as slingers (baleareis, , from ballo, :ancient Greek meaning for
to launch), although
Strabo considered the name to be of Phoenician origin. He observed that it was the Phoenician equivalent for the Greek word for lightly-armoured soldiers () (gymnetas)
[Strab. xiv. p. 654; Plin. l. c "The Rhodians, like the Baleares, were celebrated slingers"]
Sil. Ital. iii. 364, 365: "Jam cui Tlepolemus sator, et cui Lindus origo, Funda bella ferens Balearis et alite plumbo."The root
bal does point to a Phoenician origin; perhaps the islands were sacred to the god
Baal; and the accidental resemblance to the Greek root
ΒΑΛ (in - ballo), coupled with the occupation of the people, would be quite a sufficient foundation for the usual Greek practice of assimilating the name to their own language. That it was not, however, Greek at first, may be inferred with great probability from the fact that the common Greek name of the islands is not (Baleareis), but (Gymnesiai), the former being the name used by the natives, as well as by the Carthaginians and Romans. The latter name, of which two fancied etymologies have been already referred to, is probably derived from the light equipment of the Balearic troops (- gymnetae).
History
Ancient history
There is little history on the earliest inhabitants of the islands, though many legends exist. The story, preserved by
Lycophron, that certain shipwrecked
Boeotians were cast nude on the islands, was evidently invented to account for the name Gymnesiae. There is also a tradition that the islands were colonized from
Rhodes after the
Trojan war.
The islands had a very mixed population, of whose name of the islands (an instance of
folk etymology) — until the
Phoenicians clothed them with broad-bordered tunics. In other stories they were naked only in the heat of summer.
Other legends hold that the inhabitants lived in hollow rocks and artificial caves, that they were remarkable for their love of women and would give three or four men as the ransom for one woman, that they had no gold or silver coin, and forbade the importation of the precious metals, so that those of them who served as mercenaries took their pay in wine and women instead of money. Their marriage and funeral customs, peculiar to Roman observers, are related by
Diodorus Siculus (v. 18).
Map of the Balearic Islands
In ancient times, the islanders of the Gymnesian Islands constructed
talayots, and were famous for their skill with the
sling. As slingers they served, as mercenaries, first under the
Carthaginians, and afterwards under the
Romans. They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler, and a javelin burnt at the end, and in some cases tipped with a small iron point; but their effective weapons were their slings, of which each man carried three, wound round his head (Strabo p. 168; Eustath.), or, as seen in other sources, one round the head, one round the body, and one in the hand. (Diodorus) The three slings were of different lengths, for stones of different sizes; the largest they hurled with as much force as if it were flung from a catapult; and they seldom missed their mark. To this exercise they were trained from infancy, in order to earn their livelihood as mercenary soldiers. It is said that the mothers only allowed their children to eat bread when they had struck it off a post with the sling.
The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times; a remarkable trace of their colonization is preserved in the town of Mago (
Mahon in
Minorca). After the fall of
Carthage, the islands seem to have been virtually independent. Notwithstanding their celebrity in war, the people were generally very quiet and inoffensive. The Romans, however, easily found a pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered by
Q. Caecilius Metellus, thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC. Metellus settled 3,000 Roman and Spanish colonists on the larger island, and founded the cities of
Palma and
Pollentia. The islands belonged, under the
Roman Empire, to the conventus of
Carthago Nova (modern Cartagena), in the
province of
Hispania Tarraconensis, of which province they formed, the fourth district, under the government of a praefectus pro legato. An inscription of the time of
Nero mentions the PRAEF. PRAE LEGATO INSULAR. BALIARUM. (Orelli, No. 732, who, with Muratori, reads
pro for
prae.) They were afterwards made a separate province, probably in the division of the empire under
Constantine.
The two largest islands (the Balearic Islands, in their historical sense) had numerous excellent harbours, though rocky at their mouth, and requiring care in entering them (Strabo, Eustath.; Port Mahon is one of the finest harbours in the world). Both were extremely fertile in all produce, except wine and olive oil. They were celebrated for their cattle, especially for the mules of the lesser island; they had an immense number of rabbits, and were free from all venomous reptiles. Among the snails valued by the Romans as a diet, was a species from the Balearic isles, called cavaticae, from their being bred in caves. Their chief mineral product was the red earth, called sinope, which was used by painters. Their resin and pitch are mentioned by
Dioscorides The population of the two islands is stated by Diodorus at 30,000.
The part of the
Mediterranean east of Spain, around the Balearic Isles, was called "Mare Balearicum", or "Sinus Balearicus".
Post Roman Empire and Aragonese conquest
In the chaos surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire, the islands were conquered by the
Vandals. They were subsequently reconquered by the
Byzantine Empire, but soon fell to the
Moors after the
their conquest of Iberia. The
emirate of Cordoba captured them in 903. After its dissolution, they depended from the
taifa of
Dénia (1013-1067), later becoming an independent taifa.
Between 1113 and 1115, a fleet, led by
Ugo da Parlascio Ebriaco and
Archbishop Pietro Moriconi of the
Republic of Pisa,
1113-1115 Balearic Islands expedition made a successful expedition against the Balearic Islands. The expedition was launched with the support of
Constantine I of Logudoro and his base of
Porto Torres.
In the 13th century, king
James I of Aragon conquered the islands which led to subsequent founding of the
Kingdom of Majorca, but in 1344 it ceased to exist and it was directly incorporated into the
Crown of Aragon, which was later united dynastically with
Castile as a result of the marriage of
Isabella of Castile and
Ferdinand II of Aragon to become part of the newborn
Spain.
The Balearic Islands were frequently attacked by
Barbary pirates from North Africa, the
Formentera was even temporarily left by its population. In 1514, 1515 and 1521 coasts of the Balearic Islands and the Spanish mainland were raided by
Turkish privateer and
Ottoman admiral
Hayreddin Barbarossa.
The island of
Minorca was a
British dependency most of the 18th century as a result of the
Treaty of Utrecht, when Spain ceded
Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain after being captured during the
War of the Spanish Succession. It was finally and permanently ceded to
Spain by the
Treaty of Amiens in 1802 during the
French Revolutionary Wars.
See also
