Location information

Balari

SARDINIA (Island) ITALY
  Balari (Balaroi), one of the tribes or nations who inhabited the interior of Sardinia. They are mentioned both by Pliny and Strabo as one of the most considerable of the native races; the latter tells us that they inhabited a mountainous district, dwelling principally in caves, and in common with the other tribes of the interior raised but little produce of their own, and subsisted in great measure by plundering the more fertile districts on the coast. (Plin. iii. 7. s. 13; Strab. v. p. 225.) According to Pausanias they derived their origin from a body of African or Iberian mercenaries in the service of the Carthaginians, who took refuge in the mountains and there maintained their independence: he adds, that the name of Balari signified fugitives, in the Corsican language. (Paus. x. 17. § 9.) Their geographical position cannot be determined with any certainty.

This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited October 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Corsi

  Corsi (Korsior or Korsoi, Ptol.), a people of Sardinia, enumerated both by Pliny and Ptolemy among the tribes of the interior of that island. Their name indicates that they must have emigrated from the neighbouring island of Corsica, which is expressly stated by Pausanias, who adds that the strength of their mountain abodes enabled them to maintain their independence against the Carthaginians. In accordance with this, Ptolemy places them in the northern part of Sardinia, adjoining the Tibulatii, who inhabited its NE. extremity, near to the strait that separates it from Corsica. (Plin. iii. 7. s. 13; Ptol. iii. 3. § 6; Pans. x. 17. § 8.)

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...

Iolai

  Iolai or Iolaenses (Iolaoi, Paus.; Iolaeioi, Diod.; Iolaeis, Strab. v. p. 225), a people of Sardinia, who appear to have been one of the indigenous or native tribes of the island. According to Strabo, they were the same people who were called in his day Diagesbians or Diagebrians (Diaphebreis or Diaphesbeis, a name otherwise unknown: and he adds that they were a Tyrrhenian people, a statement in itself not improbable. The commonly received tradition, however, represented them as a Greek race, composed of emigrants from Attica and Thespiae, who had settled in the island under the command of lolaus, the nephew of Hercules. (Paus. x. 17. § 5; Diod. iv. 30, v. 15.) It is evident that this legend was derived from the resemblance of the name (in the form which it assumed according to the Greek pronunciation) to that of Iolaus: what the native form of the name was, we know not; and it is not mentioned by any Latin author, though both Pausanias and Diodorus affirm that it was still retained by the part of the island which had been inhabited by the Iolai. Hence, modern writers have assumed that the name is in reality the same with that of the Ilienses, which would seem probable enough; but Pausanias, the only writer who mentions them both, expressly distinguishes the two. That author speaks of Olbia, in the NE. part of the island, as one of their chief towns. Diodorus represents them, on the contrary, as occupying the plains and most fertile portions of the island, while the district adjoining Olbia is one of the most rugged and mountainous in Sardinia.

This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...