8:5 The text also identifies the male goat--goats are relatives of sheep--in this vision as representing Greece (v. 21). History has confirmed the identification. Alexander the Great is clearly the conspicuous horn. Normally goats have two horns, so this one was unusual. Under Alexander, the Greek armies advanced quickly from the West against Persia.
"Alexander's conquest of the entire Near and Middle East within three years stands unique in military history and is appropriately portrayed by the lightning speed of this one-horned goat. Despite the immense numerical superiority of the Persian imperial forces and their possession of military equipment like war elephants, the tactical genius of young Alexander, with his disciplined Macedonian phalanx, proved decisive."302
8:6-7 Due to previous attacks by the Persians, the Greeks retaliated against their enemies with unusual vengeance. Alexander won two significant battles in Asia Minor in 334 B.C. and in 333, first at the Granicus River and then at Issus in Phrygia. Alexander finally subdued Persia with a victory at Gaugamela near Nineveh in 331 B.C.303
8:8 Clearly this description corresponds to that of the third beast in 7:6. Alexander magnified himself exceedingly in two ways. He extended the borders of his empire after he conquered Medo-Persia even farther east, into modern Afghanistan and to the Indus Valley. He also became extremely arrogant. He regarded himself as divine and made his soldiers bow down before him. This resulted in his troops revolting.304
"Expositors, both liberal and conservative, have interpreted this verse as representing the untimely death of Alexander and the division of his empire into four major sections. Alexander, who had conquered more of the world than any previous ruler, was not able to conquer himself. Partly due to a strenuous exertion, his dissipated life, and a raging fever, Alexander died in a drunken debauch at Babylon, not yet thirty-three years of age. His death left a great conquest without an effective single leader, and it took about twenty years for the empire to be successfully divided."305
As mentioned in my comments on 7:6, the most probable identifications of the four horns are Lysimachus, Cassander, Seleucus, and Ptolemy (cf. 11:4).306Lysimachus ruled the northern part of Alexander's empire, Cassander the western part, Seleucus the eastern part, and Ptolemy the southern part.
