declared war against him in 192 B.C. The first conflict occurred in Greece, which was largely under his influence. An early victory secured the submission of the Greek states. Antiochus retreated into Asia Minor, and was finally crushed at Magnesia in 190. The whole of Asia Minor was then surrendered to Rome. Actual possession was postponed and local government was largely granted both there and in Greece. But that policy proved impracticable, and the force of circumstances compelled a forward movement to universal empire. There was no such thing as the balance of power in the ancient world. Once a country became predominant there was nothing for it but the subjugation of its neighbours. The extension of Rome's dominions eastward was a fulfilment of a destiny beyond its own control. The reverent student of Scripture sees in the course of these events the unfolding of God's plans and the fulfilment of His Word.

The final campaign against the Macedonians was opened in 169 B.C., and in the next year they were overwhelmed at the decisive battle of Pydna. Macedonia and the adjacent state of Illyria became tributary, and eventually were reduced to Roman provinces.

The Romans then felt the necessity of definitely annexing Greece. Seventy towns in that country were plundered and 150,000 inhabitants were sold into slavery. Antiochus IV., Epiphanes, was now king of Syria and Palestine, and had possessed himself of almost the whole of Egypt. Such was the effect of the battle of Pydna, however, that he was at once compelled to hand over Egypt to the conquerors, and that country became a Roman protectorate. Syria passed under Roman control at the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, in 164, and by the end of a few decades all the states of Asia Minor had been incorporated.

Thus by the middle of this century the Republic of Rome had gained ascendancy east and west. Its senate was recognised by the civilised world as "the supreme tribunal for kings and nations." Early in the next century Dalmatia and Thrace were subdued, and the latter was incorporated in the province of Macedonia. Wars with Mithradates, King of Pontus, Cappadocia and Armenia, resulted in the conquest of all his territories, and provinces were formed out of the states from thence westward to the Ægean sea.

Palestine Annexed.

This century saw the actual interference of Rome in the affairs of Judæa. Syria had been made a province in 65 B.C. by the Roman General Pompey, and from thence he intervened in a strife which had for some time been raging amongst the leaders of the Jews. In 63 he marched an army into Judæa and took Jerusalem. At the final assault upon the Temple 12,000 Jews perished. Judæa thus passed under the iron heel.

As a result of the wars of Cæsar in north-western Europe, in 58-51 B.C., what are now Switzerland, France, and Belgium were subdued and Britain was invaded. By Cæsar also Roman authority in Africa was consolidated across the entire length of the north of the continent. The conquests of Rome as a Republic were complete. The Mediterranean had become a "Roman lake."

The Empire Completed.

In 27 B.C. the purely Republican form of constitution was abolished, and the government of the Roman world was concentrated in the hands of an Emperor, the Cæsar Augustus of Luke 2.1. In his reign were fulfilled the prophecies foretelling the Birth of Christ. When the Prince of Peace was born in Bethlehem the din of strife was hushed throughout the empire, and Rome, under the restraining hand of God, ceased for a time its warring. By Augustus the northern territories of the empire were extended to practically the entire length of the Danube. The greater part of Britain became a province under Claudius. A later Emperor, Trajan, added, at the beginning of the second century A.D., the province of Dacia, covering what are now Transylvania and most of Roumania. Under Marcus Aurelius (161-180) a large part of Mesopotamia was finally annexed.

This completes the actual conquests of the Romans. We will now note certain characteristics of their method of subjugation, viewed in the light of Daniel's prophecy concerning the fourth kingdom, that, like iron, it would "break in pieces and crush."

The Crushing of the Nations.

The crushing process was evidenced in many ways, and especially by the establishment of a general system of slavery, which almost everywhere supplanted free labour. Slave-hunting and slave-dealing became a profession. To such an extent were they carried on at one period that certain provinces were well nigh depopulated. We are told that at the great slave-market in the island of Delos, off Greece, as many as ten thousand slaves were disembarked in the morning and bought up before the evening of the same day. Chained gangs worked under overseers and were confined in prison at night. To take an instance of the extreme rigour of the laws regulating the traffic, it is recorded by the historian Tacitus, that once, when the Prefect of Rome had been killed by one of his slaves, of whom he owned a vast number, the whole of his slaves, many of them women and children, were executed together, in accordance with an ancient law. That event took place about the time, apparently, at which the Apostle Paul arrived at Rome.

But not only were the nations ground down by slavery, the pages of Roman history abound in records of wholesale massacre and butchery. We may note, for instance, Luke's statement of Pilate's slaughter of Galilæans while they were sacrificing (Luke 13. 1). Records abound, too, of grossly burdensome taxation and financial exactions, in which the Romans outdid all tyrants that had preceded them. Usury flourished in the last century as it had never done before. Four per cent. per month was an ordinary exaction for a loan to a community. On one occasion a Roman banker, who had a claim on the municipality of Salamis, in Cyprus, kept its council blockaded until five of its members died of hunger.

By these methods the provinces of the empire were at one period reduced to a condition of unsurpassed misery. Nothing could more vividly describe the course of such a kingdom and the control exercised by it than the words of Daniel quoted above.

The Twofold Division.

This fourth kingdom was destined to be divided; and in two respects, territorial and constitutional. The territorial division was indicated by the symbolism of the legs and feet of the image of Nebuchadnezzar's vision; the constitutional division was declared in Daniel's interpretation concerning the iron and clay (v. 40). The former of these divisions claims our consideration first. Territorially the kingdom would be first divided into two parts corresponding with the legs of the image. This actually took place in the fourth century of the present era.

The Roman Empire had continued in a more or less united condition for over three centuries after the accession of its first Emperor, Augustus, in 27 B.C., though various signs of a coming division manifested themselves. It was not unusual, for instance, for an emperor to appoint an associate with himself in the imperial rank, and on one occasion Maximian, who thus became associated with Diocletian in A.D. 288, actually