[Page 2.] Salmasius (Claudius), Latinized name of Claude de Saumaise, b. 1588, d. 1653; regarded in his time, throughout Europe, as the paragon of scholarship; engaged, after the execution of Charles I., to defend the royal cause against the Commonwealth, which he endeavored to do in his Defensio Regia pro Carolo I., addressed to Charles II. In this work he defines a king ('if that,' says Milton, 'may be said to be defined which he makes infinite') 'to be a person in whom the supreme power of the kingdom resides, who is answerable to God alone, who may do whatsoever pleases him, who is bound by no law.'
P. [4], [5]. single person: Milton himself, who replied to the Eikon Basilike, and refuted its 'maudlin sophistry' in his Eikonoklastes; antagonist of mine: Salmasius.
The Second Defence of the People of England
P. [7]. one eminent above the rest: Salmasius.
P. [9], [10]. columns of Hercules: the mountains on each side of the Straits of Gibraltar. It was fabled that they were formerly one mountain, which was rent asunder by Hercules. Triptolemus: the fabled inventor of the plough and the distributor of grain among men, under favor of Ceres.
P. [10]. the most noble queen of Sweden: Christina, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus.
P. [12]. Monstrum horrendum: a monster horrible, mis-shapen, huge, deprived of his eyesight; description of the Cyclops Polyphemus, whose one eye was put out by Ulysses.—Virgil's Æneid, iii. 658.
P. [14]. Tiresias: the blind prophet of Thebes. Apollonius Rhodius: poet and rhetorician (B.C. 280-203), author of the Argonautica, a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition to Colchis in quest of the golden fleece.
P. [14], [15]. Timoleon of Corinth: Greek statesman and general, who expelled the tyrants from the Greek cities of Sicily, and restored the democratic form of government; died blind, 337 B.C. Appius Claudius: surnamed Cæcus from his blindness. Roman consul, 307 and 296; induced the senate, in his old age, to reject the terms of peace which Cineas had proposed on behalf of Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus: king of Epirus
(B.C. 318-272), who waged war against the Romans. Cæcilius Metellus: Roman consul, B.C. 251, 249; pontifex maximus for twenty-two years from 243; lost his sight in 241 while rescuing the Palladium when the temple of Vesta was on fire. Dandolo (Enrico): b. 1107(?); elected Doge in 1192; d. 1205. He was ninety-six years old when, though blind, he commanded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople, June 17, 1203.