Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

84
HISTORY OF PERSIA.
c. The brazen belly and thighs the Mace-
donian rule in Asia, Egypt, and Syria.
d. The legs of iron, and ten toes of iron and
clay the power of Rome, a mixture of
strength and weakness.
e. The stone cut without hands out of the
living rock, which destroyed the image
the spiritual kingdom of our Saviour.
2. In the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, but of un-
interpretation of the king's second
certain date : The
dream, and its assertion that he will lose for a time,
but afterwards recover, his reason 1 .
3. In the first year of Belshazzar 2 : The dream
of the four beasts (generally held to represent four
empires), with the judgment of the "Ancient of
Days " on the fourth beast, and the announcement of
the coming kingdom of " the Son of man." Like
much of The Revelation of St. John, a portion of
this prophecy may be as yet unfulfilled : we have,
however, only to wait in patience, and i*" will doubt-
less some day be as clear to us as the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah.
4. In the third year of Belshazzar 3 : A
vision at
Shushan, in which Daniel witnesses a combat between
a rant and a hegoat(t\\Q admitted symbols of
the Medo-Persian and Macedonian empires). 'Ihe
ram has two horns, of which the higher "came up
the "notable" horn
last 4 ." Alexander is clearly
1 2 Dan. iv. 25. Dan. 3
vii. 2. Dan. viii.
3.
4
Just such a he-goat may be seen on the sculptures at Persepolis
with one "notable" horn between his eyes. I may further
remark that in the third or Greek kingdom, the "little horn"