The leopard is a fierce, carnivorous animal noted for the swiftness and agility of its movements (see Hab. 1:8; cf. Hosea 13:7).

 The power succeeding the Persian Empire is identified in ch. 8:21 as “Grecia.” This “Grecia” must not be confused with the Greece of the classical period, inasmuch as that period preceded the fall of Persia. The “Grecia” of Daniel was the semi-Greek Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great (see on ch. 2:39), which inaugurated what is called the Hellenistic period. Not until Alexander’s day could reference be made to the “first king” (ch. 8:21) of a Greek empire who was “a mighty king” with “great dominion” (ch. 11:3).

In 336 Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedonia, a semi-Greek state on the northern border of Greece. Alexander’s father, Philip, had already united most of the city-states of Greece under his rule by 338 B.C. Alexander proved his mettle by subduing revolts in Greece and Thrace. After order had been restored in his own kingdom, Alexander set himself the task of conquering the Persian Empire, an ambition he had inherited from his father. Among the factors that spurred the young king on in his plans were personal ambition, the need for economic expansion, the desire to spread Greek culture, and a not unnatural animosity toward the Persians because of their past relations with his countrymen.

In 334 B.C. Alexander crossed the Hellespont and entered Persian territory with only 35,000 men, the meager sum of 70 talents in cash, and but one month’s store of provisions. The campaign was a series of triumphs. The first victory was achieved at Granicus, the next at Issus in the following year, and the next at Tyre in the year after that. Passing through Palestine, Alexander conquered Gaza and then entered Egypt virtually unopposed. Here in 331 B.C. he founded the city of Alexandria. He declared himself the successor to the Pharaohs and his troops hailed him as a god. When he set forth again that year he directed his armies toward Mesopotamia, the heart of the Persian Empire. The Persians took their stand near Arbela, east of the junction of the Tigris and Great Zab rivers, but their forces were defeated and routed. The fabulous riches of the world’s greatest empire lay open to the young king, 25 years old.

After preliminary organization of his empire Alexander pushed his conquests to the north and to the east. By 329 B.C. he had taken Maracanda, now Samarkand in Turkistan. Two years later he invaded northwest India. Soon after crossing the Indus River, however, his troops refused to go farther, and he was forced to yield to them. Returning to Persia and Mesopotamia, Alexander was faced with the stupendous work of organizing the administration of his territories. In 323 B.C. he made his capital in Babylon, a city that still preserved reminders of the glory of Nebuchadnezzar’s day. In the same year, after a round of hard drinking, Alexander fell ill and died of “swamp fever,” which is thought to be the ancient name for, or counterpart of, malaria.

 Obviously parallel with the four horns of the he-goat, which represented the four kingdoms (later reduced to three) that occupied the territory of Alexander’s short-lived conquests (see on ch. 8:8, 20-22). For some years, however, Alexander’s Macedonian generals attempted to preserve, in theory if not in fact, the unity of the vast empire. Alexander died without arranging for the succession to his throne. First his weak-minded half brother Philip and then his posthumous son Alexander were the titular rulers under the regency of one or another of the generals, and the empire was divided into a large number of provinces, the most important of which were controlled by about six leading generals as satraps (see p. 824, map A).

But the central authority—that is, the regency for the two puppet kings—was never strong enough to weld the vast empire together. Through some 12 years of internal struggle, during which the control of various sections of the territory changed repeatedly, and during which both kings were slain, Antigonus emerged as the last of the claimants for central power over the whole empire. He was opposed by a coalition of four powerful leaders, Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy, who were bent on dividing the territory among themselves. In 306 Antigonus declared himself king (jointly with his son Demetrius) of the entire empire, the successor of Alexander. Thereupon the four allies, abandoning their subordinate title of satrap, declared themselves kings of their respective territories (see p. 824, map B).

The long life-and-death struggle over the question as to whether the empire should be united under Antigonus and Demetrius or divided by the four generals was settled by the Battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. Antigonus was killed, Demetrius fled, and their territory was divided. This left, with the exception of the small fragments, four independent kingdoms (see p. 825, map C) in place of the huge empire that Alexander had won but had not been able to consolidate. Ptolemy had Egypt, also Palestine and part of Syria; Cassander had Macedonia, with nominal sovereignty over Greece; Lysimachus had Thrace and a large part of Asia Minor; and Seleucus had the bulk of what had been the Persian Empire—part of Asia Minor, northern Syria, Mesopotamia, and the east. Demetrius, reduced to control of a navy and a number of coastal cities, had no kingdom, though he later displaced the heirs of Cassander and founded the Antigonid dynasty in Macedonia.

About 20 years after the division the four were reduced to three, for Lysimachus was eliminated (see p. 825, map D). Much of his territory was taken by the Seleucid Empire, but part was overrun by the Gauls, or fell apart into small independent states, the most important of which was Pergamum. But Macedonia, Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire (sometimes known as Syria, for the eastern part was soon lost) continued on as the three major divisions of the eastern Mediterranean until they were absorbed, one by one, into the Roman Empire.

Many historians, especially writers of textbooks who must eliminate details in a broad survey, skip over the division into four and mention only the later and longer-lasting division into the three principal kingdoms that retained their identity into Roman times.

 Some would seek to find the continuation of the four kingdoms on into the Roman period by reckoning Pergamum as the successor of Lysimachus’ short-lived kingdom. But regardless of whether we speak of three principal kingdoms and the much smaller Pergamum, or three kingdoms plus a group of smaller states, it is significant that at the critical time—when the last hope of holding Alexander’s empire together failed, and the division was inevitable—the whole territory, with the exception of minor fragments, fell into four kingdoms (see Alexander’s Empire as Arranged After His Death, The Principal Territories in Alexander’s Empire, Alexander’s Empire Divided into Four Kingdoms, Three Principal Kingdoms of Alexander’s Empire) as specified by prophecy (ch. 8:22).

For the approximate boundaries of these four kingdoms, see maps in Willis Botsford, Hellenic History, facing p. 463; see discussion in Botsford, p. 454; W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, [2d ed.], pp. 6, 9.

 Alexander’s empire, even in its divided phase, was still a continuation and embodiment of its founder’s ideal—a Greco-Macedonian-Asiatic world of diverse peoples united by Greek language, thought, and civilization. Except for political centralization, the Hellenistic world constituted as much a unity as it had been under Alexander, and more so than had ever been achieved before. It was aptly represented by a single beast with multiple heads (or in ch. 8, with multiple horns). For the Hellenistic period and the rise of Rome see article on the intertestament period in Vol. V.

Although the leopard is itself a swift creature, its natural agility seems inadequate to describe the amazing speed of Alexander’s conquest. The symbolic vision represented the animal with wings added to it, not two but four, denoting superlative speed. The symbol most fittingly describes the lightning speed with which Alexander and his Macedonians in less than a decade came into possession of the greatest empire the world had yet known. There is no other example in ancient times of such rapid movements of troops on so large and successful a scale.