Daniel 8:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

As I was considering, behold, a he-goat, &c. This is interpreted, Daniel 8:21, to be the king, or kingdom, of Grecia. “A goat is very properly made the type of the Grecian or Macedonian empire; because the Macedonians at first, about two hundred years before Daniel, were denominated Ægeadæ, or the goats' people; and upon this occasion, as heathen authors report: Caranus, their first king, going with a great multitude of Greeks to seek new habitations in Macedonia, was commanded by the oracle to take the goats for his guides to empire: and afterward, seeing a herd of goats flying from a violent storm, he followed them to Edessa, and there fixed the seat of his empire, made the goats his ensigns, or standards, and called the city Ægeæ, or, The Goats' Town, and the people Ægeadæ, or, The goats' people. And to this may be added, that the city Ægeæ, or Ægæ, was the usual burying-place of the Macedonian kings. It is also very remarkable, that Alexander's son, by Roxana, was named Alexander Ægus, or the son of the goat; and some of Alexander's successors are represented on their coins with goats' horns. This he-goat came from the west; and who is ignorant that Europe lies westward of Asia? He came on the face of the whole earth, carrying every thing before him in all the three parts of the world then known; and he touched not the ground His marches were so swift, and his conquests so rapid, that he might be said, in a manner, to fly over the ground without touching it. For the same reason, the same empire, in the former vision, was likened to a leopard, which is a swift, nimble animal; and, to denote the greater quickness and impetuosity, to a leopard with four wings.” “He flew,” says Dean Prideaux, “with victory, swifter than others can travel; often with his horse pursuing his enemies upon the spur whole days and nights; and sometimes making long marches for several days one after the other, as once he did in pursuit of Darius, of near forty miles a day, for eleven days together. So that, by the speed of his marches, he came upon his enemies before they were aware of him, and conquered them before they could be in a posture to resist him.” The goat had a notable horn between his eyes “This horn, says the angel, is the first king, or kingdom, of the Greeks in Asia, which was erected by Alexander the Great, and continued for some years in his brother, Philip Aridæus, and his two young sons, Alexander Ægus and Hercules.” Bishop Newton.