2012: The Little Horn of Prophecy

Political situations, especially, are now too dangerous for us to even examine in the light of prophecy, without tearing the church apart.

That is to say, our much vaunted prophetic interest is useless to address the present world. As anxious as we Adventists are about the future, as much as we brag about our interest in historical prophecy, we risk conflict and schism if we point out something in current political life that matches prophecy. Fear of that church and its leaders is rooted in our past and extends into our future, and it is one of the few prophecies others being Matthew Roman Catholicism is, it appears, our alter ego. Without imaginary Roman Catholics heckling us from the sidelines, we hardly know who we are.

Our stories about its nearly-supernatural power and reach give us purpose and meaning in a way that the simple facts of the Gospel seem unable to. We return obsessively back to Roman Catholicism, though that denomination threatens us not at all—indeed, is hardly aware of our existence. We play the part of the abused child of this parent of Christianity, and we live in permanent crisis over it, neither getting past it nor wanting to.

Yet we fear and hate Roman Catholicism, and we cannot turn away from it and get on with our work. The authors wonder if this is why we have, as time has passed, begun to resemble our enemy more and more in organization and attitude, just as abused children can turn into abusing adults. We wish our theologians would wrestle with how to apply the prophecies we claim to love in a real present, rather than just to an imagined past or theoretical future.

But we are not optimistic.

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There are many skilled Adventist exegetes, some of whom have studied prophetic passages. Yet few touch these legacy positions, much less find in the prophetic passages new, dynamic interpretations for today. We are all constrained by the tightly-laced corset of Adventist history. Prophecy is to us Seventh-day Adventists an old rusty tool, a tool that we proudly display in our museum, but we are no longer capable of using.

Dear Adventist Today readers: To comment, click here. Send this to friend Your email Recipient email Send Cancel. It seems to me that modern Adventism has shifted in gear from the dynamism of our founders to becoming, or being in danger of becoming, just another ossified creedal-group devoted to defending its own notions of orthodoxy. It seems to me we risk becoming eschatologically lazy and arrogant. It seems we have forgotten some pretty foundational principles in interpreting prophecy, such as the following:. While all important lessons, I would submit that the greatest danger is with the last one: Likewise, in ascribing so many precise predictions concerning the Pope, Catholicism, the United States, Sunday Law and a myriad of other matters, we ironically risk disappointing ourselves, and in turn throwing out the eschatological baby with the bathwater.

If Adventists want to talk about Roman Catholicism, it would be fairer, smarter and healthier to focus on the same sort of concerns Catholics themselves routinely raise. If we want a good example of all this from within Adventism itself, we need not look to Trump and Republicans, or the Pope and Catholics, but to the now-forgotten view about the Sultan of Istanbul and his Ottoman Empire.

The reason why any of this matters, and mattered deeply to our pioneers is because Daniel The problem, as anyone who knows anything about history, is the Ottoman-Turks were on the losing side of the Great War. Almost exactly one hundred years ago their Empire ceased to exist. As explained by Jeff Boyd , the prophecy:. They now see the identification of both the King of the North and King of the South wholly in symbolic, metaphorical terms—not with any actual historic, geo-political power or individual. The theory goes that Smith was wrong in suggesting this prophetic power was that political entity we call the Ottoman Empire, but right insofar as what the prophecy was really talking about at its heart—militant Islam.

In this way, this theory suggests Daniel Should We Watch and Pray—or Guess? Events between Ezra 6 and Ezra 7, particularly of another Persian king and of the war which Persia launched against Greece are filled in by the book of Esther. The Xerxes in the book of Esther is the Xerxes described by Greek historians. Xerxes I, in a drunken impulse to show off his beautiful queen Vashti during a large state banquet asked that she show herself to the guests, in reckless violation of Persian ethics. Xerxes I did away with queen Vashti. In his third year, a feast in Shushan Esth 1: In his seventh year, after gathering all the fair young virgins to Shushan, Xerxes I replaced Vashti by marrying Esther Esth 2: Esther found favor with the king and extended her influence to the protection of the Jews.

In that same year, Xerxes I saw defeat in the Grecian wars and laid a large tribute upon the land Esth In BC Artaxerxes Longimanus, noted among the Persian kings for his wisdom, sent Nehemiah as civil governor of Jerusalem, where Nehemiah spent 12 years. Ezra and Nehemiah codified the laws of Israel by order of Artaxerxes Longimanus. For the purpose that Darius the Mede was raised by the Lord, his identity up to the present time remains wrapped in controversy.

Apart from his being mentioned in the book of Daniel, he is nowhere to be found in secular history. Daniel was contemporary with Cyrus and Darius and the fact that the Lord had stirred up the Medes in order to destroy the Babylonians could only mean that a concerted propaganda effort to wrest the Medes from its alliance with the Babylonians was underway with the same objective to install Cyrus as king of both the Medes and the Persians. Cyrus was after all the grandson of Astyages, king of the Medes. He would not be found lacking in conspirators among the Medes, including Harpagus, who had an axe to grind against Astyages.

In fact, there are those who believe that Darius is Cyrus' Median throne name. The major kingdoms of the time were Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Media. Persia, Israel, Lydia, and the rest were pawns being played by the these four major powers of the time, but the half- Medo-Persian Cyrus would soon raise Persia as the next major world power. It can be learned from Daniel This the Lord had set to accomplish as prophesied. This is also the time when Daniel so distinguished himself and became administrator under Darius.

It is also believed that the twenty-one days referred to by the angel Gabriel is specific to the period of twenty-one years between BC when the foundations were laid to rebuild the temple pursuant to Cyrus' decree, and its rededication on March 12, BC, finally completing the single most important issue in order to complete the restoration of Israel as a chosen people — to show the world that the G-d Israel worships, is the one true G-d. It is in this critical period of opposition when the Lord's purpose and the temple's significance is revealed as the angel Gabriel obviously was battling with the angel of Persia, who must be one of the fallen angels with the dragon, Satan.

Only Israel's chief angel, Michael was there to support him as those who were against the rebuilding of the temple succeeded in stopping the work, so that it had taken twenty one years from the laying of its foundation to the rededication of the temple. By the beginning of the second millennium BC, a sophisticated culture in the Aegean centered in Crete rose with a flourishing trade with Egypt and Asia Minor. About the seventeenth century BC, an invasion of central Greece and the Peloponessos were begun by Achaeans, Arcadians, Aeolians, Ionians, and finally about BC, by the Dorians - all speaking variants of the Greek tongue.

Extensive excavations at Mycenaea, Tiryns, and Pylos in Greece; at Troy in Asia Minor; and at Knossus and other sites in Crete have recovered for the world the jewelry, weapons, pottery and even the written tablets of the people of this early age showing the splendor of their palaces and their tombs. Tablets written in a script known as Linear B and found at Mycenaea, Pylos, and Knossus were deciphered only in and identified as an archaic form of Greek indicating that the control of the Aegean area including Knossus passed from Crete to the Greek mainland.

The period of Achaean supremacy is also called the Heroic or the Homeric Age, and the names of many kings of the period, e. The period BC saw the formation of the Greek city states and the development of a strong racial consciousness. Calling themselves Hellenes, the Greeks traced their descent from a mythical Hellen through his sons Aeolus, Dorus, and Xuthus, and his grandson, Ion, the son of Xuthus. The Homeric epics, composed early in this period, indicate the long development of Greek poetry, evidence that the main features of Greek mythology go back much earlier.

The Greek pantheon of Olympian divinities, and the tales of their relations with mortals, set forth by Homer and the bards succeeding him, were standardized for later ages. The early Hellenic city-states were monarchies, but the growth of a landed nobility developed aristocracies that replaced the kings. To secure their continued control, they denied political equality to other classes, especially the middle class which in BC, with the introduction of the coin became more prosperous. However, in the period following, monarchs instigated social and political conflicts in the city states resulting in the overthrow of the aristocrats and the rise to power of tyrants except in the Ionian city- state of Athens and the Dorian city-state of Sparta where the aristocracy was maintained.

Many tyrants however, were wise and able rulers who fostered the development of the arts and literature, constructed public buildings, and encouraged industry and trade. Cruel tyrants were immediately deposed and replaced. The period to BC saw a rise in colonization for purposes of trade, politics, decongestion of its overpopulated centers, and adventure. The Dorian city-state of Corinth founded Syracuse in Sicily.

The Spartans built Tarentum, southern Italy. Megara settled the Sicilian Megara. Later, the new cities themselves sent out colonies. The most important colonial area was Sicily and southern Italy comprising the Magna Graecia - Greek cities established along the Mediterranean coast as far west as with Massilia Marseilles in Spain, where Hellenic culture was brought to southern France. Thera settled Cyrene on the African coast, west of Egypt.

City-states of the Aegean islands established colonies in Thrace, on the Propontis Sea of Marmara , and along the coast of the Black Sea. Megara on the Greek mainland founded Byzantium. The new Greek city-states retained sentimental and commercial ties with the mother city but were completely and politically independent. They were unlike Roman colonies, except for the colonies established by Corinth in northwestern Greece Epidamnus, Apollonia, Ambracia, and others which remained politically dependent on the mother city.

Their numerous colonies extending from the western Mediterannean to the Black Sea promoted a strong sense of unity among the Greek. The latter was powerful because of its industry and commerce. By BC the two most important were Sparta and Athens. Sparta was reactionary and dominated by the landed aristocracy, while Athens was progressive, democratic and dominated by the middle class.

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The aristocratic faction of other city-states received support from Sparta, and the democratic faction looked to Athens for aid. When they were not fighting the Persians, Sparta and Athens infrequently fought little wars against each other for supremacy in the Peloponnesus. In BC, the little known province of Macedonia gave rise to a king, Philip, whose ambition was to unite all the Greek city states under his rule.

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He occupied Thessaly and most of Thrace; and intervening in the sacred war between the Phocians and the Beotians, defeated the Phocians and destroyed their city. Philip thus became the arbiter of Greek affairs and was publicly proclaimed to be a Hellene. Demosthenes, the orator who headed the anti- Macedonian party at Athens formed a federation of the Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens. Philip convoked a congress at Corinth and organized the Hellenic League which Sparta refused to join.

The Greek states under the league were independent and self- governing, but Philip remained commander-in-chief of the combined Greek and Macedonian forces to wage war against Persia. Philip was assassinated in BC and his son Alexander succeeded him to the throne at the age of twenty. Alexander, in order to break the rebellious Greek factions destroyed Thebes and sold the populace to slavery. There was little sympathy for the new Macedonian masters. Alexander occupied the coast of Syria, Phoenicia, Tyre and Gaza then entered Egypt without resistance.

There he founded the city of Alexandria to become for centuries the most important city of the Greek world. An expedition to India in to BC brought the Punjab within his empire. He died in Babylon in BC.

“A New Interpretation of the Little Horn of Daniel 7”: What We Learned

The Vision and Meaning. It also had ten horns. The Greeks made extensive use of iron.

The Greek rise to power was synchronous with the beginning of the Iron Age, classified in archaeology as the period following the Bronze Age. This age is characterized by the rapid spread of iron tools and weapons. Iron was best put to use by the Greeks as instruments for waging war. Another exceptionally remarkable character of ancient Greece was its city-state where the concepts of democracy, a Greek original, were applied.

Each city-state was autonomous with other city-states. They were bound by a common Greek tongue, religion, culture and trade, but rarely did they interfere with one another nor ever attempted to conquer and put all the city-states under one rule. In this aspect, there was respect for the independence of each city-state. They united under a league, to address a common issue such as during the war against the Persians but the league was never used as an instrument to conquer the rest of the city-state and place them under one rule until Philip of Macedonia.

The Fourth Beast has Ten Horns. Leading may mean its influence may be inferred from its being very old. However, city-states established much later wielded influence far greater than the older ones. The ten known oldest Greek city-states enumerated below, namely: A city-state was a unit of government in which sovereignty was exercised by an independent city. Although independent cities have existed throughout history, the term city-state is used most commonly to refer to the polis, the autonomous city of ancient Greece.

According to Grolier, the Greek city-states, of which Athens and Sparta were the most important, numbered several hundred. Often they are worn by ancient warriors on their heads as a symbol of their pride and power. This practice could be traced back to hunters in the days of the bison or such similar bovids hunted for their meat. Alexander the Great is often depicted wearing an iron helmet with horns. The Greek city states were examples to be emulated in terms of governance. They were known for its ruling councils called the Senate where laws were debated on before they were passed and the democratic processes, e.

Under this liberal atmosphere, the arts flourished such as never before seen in world history. Greek became the universal language for kingdoms around the Great Sea. Contemporary arts and sciences trace their early roots to Greek scholars and philosophers, who are read and quoted up to the present. Later, other city-states would be found by older city-states or existing non-Greek city-states incorporated and come under Greek influence and grow to exert more influence than the older city-states. Of the second type is Macedonia. In the fifth century BC.

Macedonia adopted the Attic Greek system of public administration and looked up to the southern Greek city-states, though many Greeks in the south regarded it as barbarian. Rome, founded in the seventh century BC existing as an independent non-Greek city-state had economic and civil relations with the existing Greek city-states of that time. Alexandria in Egypt, founded by and named after him, was one. The capital cities of the ancient world, like the old city of Babylon, in Mesopotamia where Alexander spent his last days, in pursuit of further expansion in India, were also developed.

They must include the new city-state of Alexandria representing Egypt; the old city of Babylon representing conquered Mesopotamia; and one of the old cities of Susa, Persepolis or Ecbatana, representing Persia. Furthermore, the first beast of Revelation These three horns are the kingdoms of Ptolemy, whose capital is in Alexandria of Egypt; Seleucus, whose capital is Babylon of Mesopotamia; and Antigonus, whose kingdom is in Macedonia.

I considered the horns, and, Daniel behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: It is also possible that such older Greek city-states as Athens and Sparta, for example, had influenced Rome by way of Sicily because the concept of democracy exercised by the Greek city-states was also practiced by Rome during the Republic. The verses below from Daniel 7: Macedonia but would later rise to power and subdue the three horns before it.

These three horns were the three kingdoms of Alexander the Great divided between his successors upon his death at age 33 at the height of his power, in BC. These were the three kingdoms that were uprooted before the kingdom of Rome. Macedonia became a Roman province in , and the Achaean and Aetolian leagues were dissolved in Romans defeated the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III in , and the diminution of his authority led many of his subjects to rebel so that by BC the Jews had established a state in Palestine and the Parthians had acquired Mesopotamia.

The Fourth Beast is not Rome. Thus, the third and fourth kingdoms should be Persia and Greece. This means that the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2 is not exactly the same as Daniel's own vision in 7 and 8. As for the use of iron, about to BC, the Aegean civilizations of the Minoans and Mycenaeans forefathers of the Greeks established centers of metalworking and extensive trade routes into central Europe in order to obtain tin and copper. Hoplites from the Greek hoplon, a round shield - ranks of drilled infantry armored with helmets, corselets, greaves, and shields and armed with iron-tipped spears - became the backbone of Greek military power.

We can surmise then, that the Greeks, who already had developed metallurgy for bronze, easily adapted their technology to smelt iron. Uriah Smith's interpretation was published in a book entitled Thoughts, Critical and Practical, on the Book of Revelation in In the year he wrote another book entitled, Thoughts, Critical and Practical, on the Book of Daniel.

Haskell, entitled, The Story of Daniel the Prophet, it published in Ellen White wanted the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation combined together and put in small booklets, showing how the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation relate to each other. If, then, the beast be conceived of as an entity persisting throughout the course of history, then Babylon sits upon the beast; if the point of view be the changing aspects of the world empire, then Babylon sits upon the seven heads.

In a stationary picture successive events are necessarily represented as simultaneous. This is true also of the interpretation of the seven heads as seven mountains, which is not further elaborated. Of course, as the writer intended, the readers who regarded Rome as the Babylon of their age 1 Pet. However, even these seven mountains were only symbols of the places — probably upon earth — where successively the' capital of the world has stood and is destined to stand cf.

Of subordinate importance is the question as to the succession of world empires presented in Rev. Probably 1 Egypt with Pharaoh as the typical name of the king, 2 Assyria with Sennacherib, 3 Babylon with Nebuchadnezzar, 4 the Medo-Persian empire, 5 the Graeco- Macedonian empire, 6 the Roman Empire with its Caesar, 7 the short-lived empire which is to come, to be followed by a renewal of the fifth empire of which Antiochus is the antitype, who is the antichrist of the last days.

This is the eighth kingdom. Most of the Bible commentaries, dictionaries, and encyclopedias have not been able to consistently tie all the visions and prophecies into one cohesive, consistent and plausible interpretation upon which a decision relying on them may be made. If they were not speculative, consistent, or overly secular, they had a tendency to interpret to be spiritual, an otherwise purely physical event.

The absence of a consistent and coherent timeline underlies the inadequacy of coherent interpretations of visions. This can be catastrophic in decision making for political leaders who are Christians. One such, is a military strategy which seeks to probe Gog and Magog with pre-emptive strikes which may instead have adverse consequences.

The fact that scripture is used for political reasons is exemplified by the high priest Jaddua who met with Alexander the Great upon his victory over the Persian. Only history can give us the chronological point of views as no other study can and correctly identify the transformations of the nations and institutions associated with these beasts. From BC it was ruled by Etruscan kings who adopted much of Greek civilization and turned Rome into a city-state. The history of Rome is divided into three distinct epochs and one unique epoch which historians treats separately for not being Roman but assumes itself to be sovereign over Italy and the Romans.

The three epochs are characterized by its Latin roots, whose constituency expanded as its power grew. The fourth epoch, 4 the Holy Roman empire which lasted according to secular official historical records from to AD, saw the erstwhile enemies of the ancient Roman empire, as at last they became its conquerors, aspire to supplant itself and acquire legal jurisdiction over the breadth of the old empire. Failing to acquire a secular authority, it achieved a vague spiritual authority vested to it by the pope as high priest of the Roman Catholic Church which had dominion over all the Roman Catholics, a religion that was forced on all the subjects of the empire.

These four distinct epochs in the history of Rome, would become its transformations as it grew from a small kingdom to the biggest empire the world had ever seen; then its decline and fall, and its subsequent rise and revival by other kingdoms who aspired to equal and wield the power it once held.

During the first three transformations, a clear distinction may be discerned in the increase of its secular power and territory and in the fourth, it tried to achieve the former power and territory by securing the spiritual authority of the Roman Catholic Church over the Roman Catholics that inhabited the empire. From BC it was ruled by Etruscan kings who adopted Greek civilization, including their alphabet, and turned Rome into a city-state.

The Romans eventually assimilated the Etruscans. The settlement of Rome began in the early Iron Age BC when parts of Latium in the vicinity of Mount Alban were invaded from the north by Indo-European-speaking settlers who built villages along the left bank of the Tiber River. This villagers were a simple isolated folk of shepherds and farmers. On the Palatine hill, one of seven hills found in the site, settled the Latins; and on the Quirinal hill, Sabines.

The union between the Latins and Sabines paved the way to the city of Rome with a civic and business center, the Forum, on the Capitoline hill. Roman tradition attributed the union to Romulus, the first king and legendary founder of Rome, who as legend tells, was raised by a she-wolf together with his twin brother, Remus, he later murdered. During the time of the last king, Superbus, the magnificent temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva on the Capitoline were built.

The citizens of early Rome were divided into two groups, the patricians, who were the landed aristocrats who ruled over the plebeians, the freed slaves skilled in crafts and other trade. The patricians held a monopoly of the magistrates and other legal offices, priesthood, and oracles. The king was the high priest, final arbiter and commander of the army. A reform attributed to Servius Tullus had the citizens register in regional tribes that in BC had four urban and sixteen rural and further divided them into classes and centuries groups of one hundred according to their property rating and consequent ability to provide military equipment.

In the early republic, this became a political assembly with centuries as voting units and facilitated the mobilization of the patricians and the plebeians into an army. After the expulsion of the king in BC, power was transferred to magistrates called consuls. The consuls were patricians elected for annual terms in the centuriate assembly. In BC the tribunes represented the plebeians. In BC the law was codified by two boards of ten each. The first was chiefly patrician, called decemvirs.

The admission of plebeians to the Senate replaced the membership from the aristocracy of birth with one of office. The great tribunician families now became parts of the senatorial order. The overthrow of the kings was followed by war with other Latins until BC when the Latin League was formed. The league defended Rome and its neighboring Latins from the Volscians in the south, and the Aequi and the Sabines in the east. An alliance with the Hernici in BC kept the peace. From to a revolt by the Latins over Roman dominance in the affairs of the league failed but dissolved the league.

The colonies of Magna Graecia in the south of Italy soon followed. Retiring in BC he left Tarentum to the Romans. Rome consolidated all the Greek cities in south Italy under its control until it became a Mediterranean power in BC. Rome, using its navy, defeated Carthage and annexed its territory in Sicily, the first Roman overseas territory. Rome now established itself as the power in the western Mediterranean. In BC, Rome was at war with Greece.

In BC, the second war was fought ending in the defeat of Antiochus. A third war in BC reduced the Macedonian kingdom to a province of Rome. The booty from the Punic and Greek wars and expansion into Spain, Gaul and Africa increased the authority of the Senate. Great senatorial families linked thru intermarriage and friendships, supported by merchants monopolized government offices.

Outside of these office-holding families, few rose to the consulship. One of them was Marcus Porcius Cato supported by a few aristocratic families. Cato, a moralist, lamented the decadence which sprung from the multitudes of slaves from the wars and the accumulation of great wealth among the upper class which favored the growth of large estates displacing small farmers who moved north or into the cities as squatters.

A crisis in military manpower resulted since the levy for the army was based on landholding, but Roman literature and the arts rose to new forms with Greek influence in all of Roman culture. Tiberius Gracchus, a plebeian tribune, attempted to solve the problem by repossessing public land of over acres for agrarian reform. He had some support from the aristocrats but ran against heavy senatorial opposition. When Gracchus sought re- election his senatorial opponents raised a riot and killed him.

Ten years later, his brother Gaius Gracchus BC revived his program on a wider scale with a grain law and built roads, buildings, settlements and colonies. He won over the equites and financiers by giving them sole membership of the juries in the extortion courts and the contracts for the collection of tithes in Asia. He was undermined by the tribune Livius Drusus, who promised land and colonies on still more generous terms and his bill was lost. Failing to be re-elected, he was killed in the riot of BC ending the long tradition of orderly settling political disputes.

Marius and Sulla and the First Triumvirate. There was perennial war against Jugurtha, a Numidian prince in Africa; and two hordes of Teutons, the Cimbri and the Teutoni who destroyed two Roman armies. The dearth in manpower and able leadership again roused the popular opposition to criticize the incompetence and corruption of the Senate and brought Gaius Marius to the fore. Marius had just won a victory over Jugurtha in Africa and in he exterminated the German hordes. His major reform was the volunteer proletarian army.

Marius would thus start a succession of rulers with a loyal army who looked upon him for their rewards. The rising tide of discontent erupted into the Italian Revolution in BC checked only by the grant of citizenship. The new registrants outnumbered the old. This was cause for party strife between Marius who represented the proletarian and Sulla, his able lieutenant, who represented the aristocrats. After a victorious campaign against Mithridates, Sulla returned to Italy and many leaders, including Gnaeus Pompeius Pompey joined him.

Marius had earlier died in 86 BC. Sulla became dictator in 82 BC. He enforced measures that remedied the problems which brought about the Italian Revolution. He died in 80 BC. With Marius and Sulla began the period when commanders of the army ruled over the Senate and dictatorial powers were bestowed on them. Pompey soon followed Sulla. In 63 BC, he captured Jerusalem. Together they formed the First Triumvirate and ruled over the Senate. In between campaigns Caesar carried out a program of reform; a modern calendar, legislation on moral and religious matters, suppression of disorderly societies, juries composed of senators and equites, reduced the number of recipients of free grain, a building program, fixed terms for provincial governors, a norm for municipal constitutions, colonization in Italy and the provinces of both his veterans and the poor of the city, abolition of farming of the tithe, and grants of citizenship in all the Roman possession.

He increased the Senate to and increased the number of magistracies, but kept commands, foreign affairs, and finances in his own hands. The constitutional problems brought about by his repeated consulships and dictatorship remained unsettled. The divine honors he received, the appointment of a priest to supervise his cult, and the offer of a diadem, pointed to royal power as his ultimate solution.

During his time Julius Caesar also granted Jews the freedom to worship in Rome as a reward for their help in Alexandria. His toleration and assimilation of several religious myths into the Graeco-Roman cult is a significant character of his regime which gave Jews and later the early Christians the freedom to worship and exercise their faith. In February, 44 BC, he became dictator perpetuis. In March 15, 44 BC he was assassinated. He occupied Egypt and used its treasures to finance the reconstruction of Rome destroyed by a century of civil strife.

He rebuilt Rome and became a great patron of arts.

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During his reign began years of peace known as Pax Romana. He built the system of roads and postal system to unify the empire. Commerce boomed even in the frontiers. He also reformed the Senate, instituted equitable taxation, and revived the census. Thus ended the Republic and the empire began.

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The problems expanded with the empire. The most pressing were the rebellious frontiers. The urgency could no longer be addressed by a rule of a representative Senate except by absolute rule by one man; from an autocratic democracy to a monarchy. In the last century BC, the year-old Republic beset by a decadent society ruled by an incompetent and corrupt Senate, was rocked by another civil war checked only by the army. From then on, Rome saw the rise of army commanders who subdued the enemies in the frontiers and colonies and declared emperor by a cowed Senate. In the time of Augustus, the Praetorian Guards were created from three cohorts of Roman legionnaires and stationed in Rome to protect the emperor.

Roman expansion which began in the time of the Republic reached its peak under Emperor Trajan covering approximately 6,, km. In that year, Augustus died. Tiberius was succeeded by his grandnephew, Gaius, also known as Caligula little boots. His reign started well until he became insane and in 41 he was assassinated. The senate debated the merits of restoring the republic but the army, declared Claudius as emperor. Claudius reign was reasonable but his marriage to his niece may have been the reason he was poisoned in Diplomatic Nero succeeded Claudius and trade went well.

Nero, however, was a tyrant and committed suicide in A brief civil war followed. Between June 68 and December 69, Rome witnessed the successive rise and fall of Galba, Otho and Vitellius until the final accession of Vespasian, first ruler of the Flavian dynasty. Under Vespasian, the Senate remained inutile.

He constructed the Colosseum but the First Jewish Revolt of his time resulted in the burning of the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem by his son, Titus. He opened the unfinished Colosseum but died in 81 and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian. In September of 96, he was murdered. The next following five emperors had peaceful reigns and the empire prospered.

The last two and Commodus were called Antonines.

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In , Trajan annexed Armenia then turned south into Parthia, then declared Mesopotamia a new province of the empire. During his rule, the Roman empire was to its largest extent, and advanced the farthest to the east which Hadrian, his successor defended. The relatively peaceful period ended with the reign of Commodus who became paranoid and was murdered in The Severan dynasty was marked by troubles. Caracalla, his son, extended full Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire. Unstable and autocratic, he was assassinated by Macrinus.

Macrinus was himself assassinated and succeeded by Elagabalus. Alexander Severus, the last of the dynasty, was unable to control the army, and was assassinated in Between and saw the near collapse of the empire under 25 emperors under whom Rome experienced extreme military, political, and economic crises. In , the Plague of Cyprian broke out which decimated the population and seriously undermined the defense of the empire. The period ended under Diocletian, whose reign from until solved many of the acute problems, except for the main problems.

Diocletian, to better manage the vast empire, split it in half and created two equal emperors to rule under the title of Augustus, creating a western and an eastern Roman empire. In each Augustus took a junior emperor called a Caesar to ensure succession. This constituted what is now known as the Tetrarchy "rule of four". The Tetrarchy effectively collapsed with the death of Constantius Chlorus, the first of the Constantinian dynasty, in Civil wars broke out ending with the entire empire united under Constantine, who legalized Christianity in through the Edict of Milan.

In , Julian became emperor and his edict of toleration in ordered the reopening of pagan temples, and recalled previously exiled Christian bishops. Julian resumed the war against Shapur II of Persia, where he died in battle in Valentinian I, the first of the Valentinian dynasty, was elected Augustus, and chose his brother Valens to serve as his co-emperor. In , eight-year-old Gratian was proclaimed emperor. Succession did not go as planned as Gratian was then only 16 years old.

His half-brother was proclaimed emperor under the title Valentinian II. A tribe east of the empire resettled by Valens on the southern bank of the Danube in revolted. On 9 August , in the Battle of Adrianople, Valens was killed and his army defeated. Two thirds of the Roman army including veteran soldiers and valuable administrators were lost. Gratian, now responsible for the whole of the empire in choose Theodosius I to replace Valens for the eastern Roman empire. Theodosius, the founder of the Theodosian dynasty, proclaimed his five year old son Arcadius an Augustus in to insure succession.

Hispanic Celt general Magnus Maximus, in Roman Britain, was proclaimed Augustus by his troops in and rebelled against Gratian when he invaded Gaul. Gratian fled, but was assassinated. Maximus negotiations with Valentinian II and Theodosius were to no avail. Theodosius campaigned west in and was victorious against Maximus, who was executed. In Valentinian II was murdered, and thereafter Arbogast arranged for the appointment of Eugenius as emperor.

However, the eastern emperor Theodosius I refused to recognize Eugenius as emperor and invaded the West, defeating and killing Arbogast and Eugenius, reuniting the entire Roman Empire under his rule. Theodosius was the last emperor who ruled over the whole empire. As emperor, he made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.