_History._--This "first king" of united Grecia was Alexander the Great. "With Alexander the New Greece begins."--_Harrison, "Story of Greece," p. 499._ "And it happened, after that Alexander ... had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece." 1 Maccabees 1:1. Under Alexander, the Grecian goat ran upon the Persian ram "in the fury of his power." At Arbela, wrote Arrian, the Macedonians charged "with great fury." None was able to deliver the Persian ram. "Wherever you fly," wrote Alexander to the retreating Darius, "thither I will surely pursue you." (See "Anabasis of Alexander the Great," by Arrian, book 2, chap. 14.) Medo-Persia fell before Grecia, as this sure word of prophecy had foretold two hundred years before Alexander's day. Grecia's expansion and its later history were next unfolded before the prophet's vision: _Prophecy._--"Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven." Verse 8. Of the ram (Persia) it was said it became "great;" of the goat (Grecia); that it became "very great." _History._--Justin, the Roman, wrote of Alexander: "So much was the whole world awed by the terror of his name, that all nations came to pay their obedience to him."--_"History of the World," book 12, chap. 13._ "Vain in his hopes, the youth had grasped at all, And his vast thought took in the vanquished ball." --_Lucan's "Pharsalia" (Nicholas Rowe's translation), book 3._ But the unerring prophecy had said that "when he was strong, the great horn was broken." Suddenly the youthful conqueror was cut down by death, just as he was preparing to celebrate at Babylon a "convention of the whole universe," "being thus taken off in the flower of his age, and in the height of his victories."--_Justin, "History of the World," book 13, chap. 1._ The ancient pagan writers, in telling the story, make use of language very similar to that used by divine prophecy in foretelling it. Following Alexander's death the empire was divided "toward the four winds of heaven." Myers says: "Four well-defined and important monarchies arose out of the ruins.... The great horn was broken; and instead of it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven."--_"History of Greece" (edition 1902), p. 457._ As the prophet watched these four kingdoms of divided Greece, he beheld another power coming into the field of his vision through one of the four kingdoms, and extending its authority more than any before it: _Prophecy._--"Out of one of them [one of the four kingdoms] came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land." Verse 9.