Daniel 8:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

An he-goat came from the west— 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 AEgeadae or the goat's people. The reason of their being so named is thus assigned. Caranus, their first king, going with a multitude of Greeks to seek new habitations in Macedonia, was commanded by the oracle to take the goats for his guides to empire; and afterwards 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 place AEge, or AEgea, that is to say, The Goat's Town, and the people, AEgeadae, or The Goat's People; names which allude to, and are derived from the Greek word αιξ [aix] a goat. To this may be added, that the city AEgae or AEge was the usual burying-place for the Macedonian kings. It is also remarkable, that Alexander's son by Roxana was named Alexander AEgus, or the son of the goat. Alexander himself ordered the statuaries to represent him with a horn upon his head, that he might appear to be the son of Jupiter Ammon; and some of Alexander's successors are represented in their coins with goat's 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 whole earth without touching it. For the same reason, the same empire in chap. 7: was likened to a leopard, which is a swift noble animal; and, to denote the greater quickness and impetuosity, to a leopard with four wings. And the he-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 some years in his brother Philip Aridaeus, and his two young sons, Alexander AEgus, and Hercules. See Bishop Newton, p. 9, &c. Dr. Sharpe's Rise and Fall, &c. p. 47 and Prideaux's Connection, part 2: book 8: ann. 330.