After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I saw - a fourth beast - it had great iron teeth - This is allowed, on all hands, to be the Roman empire. It was dreadful, terrible, and exceeding strong: it devoured, and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue, that is, the remains of the former kingdoms, with its feet. It reduced Macedon into a Roman province about one hundred and sixty-eight years before Christ; the kingdom of Pergamos about one hundred and thirty-three years; Syria about sixty-five; and Egypt about thirty years before Christ. And, besides the remains of the Macedonian empire, it subdued many other provinces and kingdoms; so that it might, by a very usual figure, be said to devour the whole earth, to tread it down, and break it to pieces; and became in effect, what the Roman writers delight to call it, the empire of the whole world.
It (the fourth beast) was diverse from all the beasts that were before it - Not only in its republican form of government, but also in power and greatness, extent of dominion, and length of duration.
It had ten horns - The ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was afterwards divided. Calmet says, ten Syrian kings: and he finds them thus: -
1. Seleucus Nicator.
2. Antiochus Soter.
3. Antiochus Theos.
4. Antiochus Callinicus.
5. Seleucus Ceraunus.
6. Antiochus the Great.
7. Seleucus, surnamed Philopater, brother of Antiochus Epiphanes.
8. Laomedon of Mitylene, to whom Syria and Phoenicia had been intrusted.
9. Antigone. And,
10. His son Demetrius, who possessed those provinces, with the title of kings.
This is too much like forced work. There are different opinions concerning these ten kings; or rather which they were that constituted this division of the Roman empire. They are reckoned thus: -
1. The Roman senate.
2. The Greeks, in Ravenna.
3. The Lombards in Lombardy.
4. The Buns in Hungary.
5. The Alemans, in Germany.
6. The Franks in France.
7. The Burgundians in Burgundy.
8. The Saracens in Africa, and a part of Spain.
9. The Goths, in other parts of Spain.
10. And the Saxons, in Britain.