Daniel 8:23 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

In the latter time of their kingdom, i.e. when they were come to the height, and beginning to decline. It notes that time when the Romans began to seize part of the Grecian kingdom, by Emilius Probus, who subdued Perseus king of Macedonia, and thereby brought all Greece under the Roman jurisdiction; which was one hundred and sixty-six years before Christ was born, that very year Antiochus set up the abomination of desolation. When the transgressors are come to the full; when the Jews were grown to an excess of wickedness, and called for punishment, then God suffered Antiochus to persecute them. Of fierce countenance; such was he: the word is translated impudent, inhuman, for the countenance is the discoverer of the mind and manners oftentimes. Understanding dark sentences; full of all subtlety, another Julian, to lay snares, and fetch over the inconstant and backsliding Jews: such a one all histories declare this Antiochus to be.