History.—This "first king" of united Grecia was Alexander the Great.
"With Alexander the New Greece begins."—Harrison, "Story of Greece," p. 499.
"And it happened, after that Alexander ... had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece." 1 Maccabees 1:1.
Under Alexander, the Grecian goat ran upon the Persian ram "in the fury of his power." At Arbela, wrote Arrian, the Macedonians charged "with great fury." None was able to deliver the Persian ram. "Wherever you fly," wrote Alexander to the retreating Darius, "thither I will surely pursue you." (See "Anabasis of Alexander the Great," by Arrian, book 2, chap. 14.) Medo-Persia fell before Grecia, as this sure word of prophecy had foretold two hundred years before Alexander's day.
Grecia's expansion and its later history were next unfolded before the prophet's vision:
Prophecy.—"Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven." Verse 8.
Of the ram (Persia) it was said it became "great;" of the goat (Grecia); that it became "very great."
History.—Justin, the Roman, wrote of Alexander:
"So much was the whole world awed by the terror of his name, that all nations came to pay their obedience to him."—"History of the World," book 12, chap. 13.