"Vain in his hopes, the youth had grasped at all,
And his vast thought took in the vanquished ball."
—Lucan's "Pharsalia" (Nicholas Rowe's translation), book 3.
But the unerring prophecy had said that "when he was strong, the great horn was broken." Suddenly the youthful conqueror was cut down by death, just as he was preparing to celebrate at Babylon a "convention of the whole universe,"
"being thus taken off in the flower of his age, and in the height of his victories."—Justin, "History of the World," book 13, chap. 1.
The ancient pagan writers, in telling the story, make use of language very similar to that used by divine prophecy in foretelling it. Following Alexander's death the empire was divided "toward the four winds of heaven." Myers says:
"Four well-defined and important monarchies arose out of the ruins.... The great horn was broken; and instead of it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven."—"History of Greece" (edition 1902), p. 457.
As the prophet watched these four kingdoms of divided Greece, he beheld another power coming into the field of his vision through one of the four kingdoms, and extending its authority more than any before it:
Prophecy.—"Out of one of them [one of the four kingdoms] came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land." Verse 9.
History.—Medo-Persia was "great," Grecia was "very great," but this power was to be "exceeding great." Rome followed Grecia. Polybius, the Roman, says:
"Almost the whole inhabited world was conquered, and brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome."—"Histories of Polybius" (Evelyn Shuckburgh's translation), book 1, chap. 1.