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  • Part 5—Greece—The Fifth Great World Power
    The Watchtower—1988 | April 15
    • “The male of the goats, for its part, put on great airs to an extreme; but as soon as it became mighty, the great horn was broken, and there proceeded to come up conspicuously four instead of it, toward the four winds of the heavens. . . . The hairy he-goat stands for the king of Greece; and as for the great horn that was between its eyes, it stands for the first king. And that one having been broken, so that there were four that finally stood up instead of it, there are four kingdoms from his nation that will stand up, but not with his power.”​—Daniel 8:8, 21, 22.

  • Part 5—Greece—The Fifth Great World Power
    The Watchtower—1988 | April 15
    • As the Bible predicted, Alexander’s enjoyment of world rulership was short-lived. At the very height of his victorious career, at the age of only 32, Alexander’s ruthless conquests came to an end. Stricken with malarial fever, he continued feasting to drunkenness and suddenly died in Babylon in 323 B.C.E. His body was taken to Egypt and entombed in Alexandria. “The great horn” that “stands for the first king” had been broken. What then happened to his empire?

      The prophecy had said that his kingdom would be divided “but not to his posterity.” Alexander’s incapable brother Philip Arrhidaeus ruled for a short time but was murdered. So were Alexander’s legitimate son Alexander (Allou) and his illegitimate son Heracles (Hercules). Thus the lineage of Alexander the Great, the great spiller of blood, died out.

      Also foretold was that “there are four kingdoms from his nation that will stand up, but not with his power” and that his kingdom would be “divided toward the four winds of the heavens, but . . . not according to his dominion with which he had ruled.” Did this happen?

      In course of time, Alexander’s vast empire was divided among four of his generals: (1) General Cassander​—Macedonia and Greece. (2) General Lysimachus​—Asia Minor and European Thrace. (3) General Seleucus Nicator​—Babylonia, Media, Syria, Persia and the eastern provinces to the Indus River. (4) General Ptolemy Lagus​—Egypt, Libya, and Palestine. As prophesied, from Alexander’s one great kingdom arose four Hellenic, or Grecianized, kingdoms.a

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