The fortress town's own ruins are located at the modern Qala'at Balis (قلعة بالس) in the Aleppo Governorate of northern Syria.

An outpost near the Roman border with Parthia and Persia, it served as the garrison town for the Dalmatian Cavalry (Latin: Equites Dalmatae Illyriciani), a unit named for its origin in the Balkans.

[4] In 253, the Battle of Barbalissos saw Persians under Shapur I defeat a Roman army, after which he was able to sack and burn all the major cities of Syria Coele, including Antioch, Zeugma, and Samosata.

[5][6] Although Lequien wrote that no Notitia Episcopatuum mentioned Barbalissus, which he suggested was a small fortified town rather than a city,[5] an early 20th-century writer says the diocese is included in one such list, dating from the 6th century, as a suffragan of Hierapolis Bambyce, within the patriarchate of Antioch.

[3] Al-Saffah transferred Balis to the prince Sulayman ibn Ali, whose son Muhammad inherited it before it was confiscated by Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809).