--_Rawlinson, "Fourth Monarchy," Appendix A._

Medo-Persia

But the prophet Daniel, proceeding with the divine interpretation,
interrupted all such proud thoughts with the declaration, "After thee
shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee."

Now the look was forward into the future. And the word came to pass.
Babylon's decline was swift after Nebuchadnezzar's death. Daniel the
prophet himself lived to interpret the handwriting on the wall at
Belshazzar's feast:

"God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.... Thou art weighed in
the balances and art found wanting.... Thy kingdom is divided, and given
to the Medes and Persians." Dan. 5:26-28.

The breast and arms of silver, in the great image, represented the
Medo-Persian kingdom, which followed the Babylonian, "inferior" to it in
brilliancy and grandeur, as silver is inferior to gold. Medo-Persia,
however, enlarged the borders of the world empire; and the names of
Cyrus and Darius are written among the mightiest conquerors of history.

But the prophet does not stop to dwell upon the grandeur of fleeting
earthly kingdoms. The interpretation hastens on to reach the setting up
of a kingdom that shall not pass away. Following Medo-Persia, a third
power was to rise,

Grecia

"And another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the
earth."

The "third kingdom" after Babylon was Grecia, which overthrew the empire
of the Medes and Persians. And Grecia's dominion fulfilled the
specifications of the prophecy, which indicated a yet wider expansion of
empire. Its sway was to be over "all the earth," said Daniel the
prophet, foretelling its history. Arrian, the Greek historian, writing
afterward, said that Alexander of Greece seemed truly "lord of all the
earth;" and he adds:

"I am persuaded there was no nation, city, nor people then in
being whither his name did not reach; for which reason,
whatever origin he might boast of, or claim to himself, there
seems to me to have been some divine hand presiding both over
his birth and actions."--_"History of the Expedition of
Alexander the Great," book 7, chap. 30._

The sides of brass in the great image represented Grecia, the brazen
metal itself being a fitting symbol of those "brazen-mailed" Greeks,
celebrated in ancient poetry and song,

"Among the foremost, armed in glittering brass."

A Power Rising in the West

While Grecia's supremacy under Alexander