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 was disputed by none, there was a power rising in the West that was soon to enter the lists for the prize of world dominion. Some of the ancient writers say that at the time of his death Alexander had in mind to push westward to strike down the growing power of the city of Rome, of which he had heard. Plutarch says that this man Alexander, "who shot like a star, with incredible swiftness, from the rising to the setting sun, was meditating to bring the luster of his arms into Italy.... He had heard of the Roman power in Italy."--_"Morals," chap. on "Fortune of the Romans," par. 13._ Lucan, the ancient Roman poet, repeats the thought: