[7] Historian Herwig Wolfram theorizes that the name may derive from Pliny the Elder's island of Baltia (i.e., isle of the Balts), which he also calls Basilia (i.e., royal land).
His descendants continued to rule down to 531, when on the death of Amalaric the line went extinct.
Theoderic's intervention is often credited with saving the Visigothic kingdom, but it ended the Balt dynasty.
[3] The private wealth (res privata) of the Balt kings, which had been a foundation of their legitimacy, was transformed into the royal treasury (thesaurus regalis) and became state property after 531.
[8] The dynastic principle was abandoned and kings were chosen by election until the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in 711.