(e) The ten horns. These were emblems of power, denoting that in reference to that power there were, in some respects, ten sources. The same thing is referred to here which is in Da. vii. 7, 8, 20, 24. See the Notes on Da. vii. 24, where this subject is fully considered. The creature that John saw was indeed a monster, and we are not to expect entire congruity in the details. It is sufficient that the main idea is preserved, and that would be, if the reference was to Rome considered as the place where the energy of Satan, as opposed to God and the church, was centered.
(f) The seven crowns. This would merely denote that kingly or royal authority was claimed.
Roman Standard.
The general interpretation which refers this vision to Rome may receive confirmation from the fact that the dragon was at one time the Roman standard, as is represented by the annexed engraving from Montfauçon. Ammianus Marcellinus (xvi. 10) thus describes this standard: “The dragon was covered with purple cloth, and fastened to the end of a pike gilt and adorned with precious stones. It opened its wide throat, and the wind blew through it; and it hissed as if in a rage, with its tail floating in several folds through the air.” He elsewhere often gives it the epithet of purpureus—purple-red: purpureum signum draconis, &c. Withthis the description of Claudian well agrees also:—
“Hi volucres tollent aquilas; hi picta draconum
Colla levant: multumque tumet per nubila serpens,
Iratus stimulante noto, vivitque receptis
Flatibus, et vario mentitur sibila flatu.”
The dragon was first used as an ensign near the close of the second century of the Christian era, and it was not until the third century that its use had become common; and the reference here, according to this fact, would be to that period of the Roman power when this had become a common standard, and when the applicability of this image would be readily understood. It is simply Rome that is referred to—Rome, the great agent of accomplishing the purposes of Satan towards the church. The eagle was the common Roman ensign in the time of the republic, and in the earlier periods of the empire; but in later periods the dragon became also a standard as common and as well known as the eagle. “In the third century it had become almost as notorious among Roman ensigns as the eagle itself; and is in the fourth century noted by Prudentius, Vegetius, Chrysostom, Ammianus, &c.; in the fifth, by Claudian and others” (Elliott).