Fourth Empire?

I was just reading Mackey again.

Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ and Herod ‘the Great’
Part Two:‘The King’ of Daniel 11
https://www.academia.edu/36262347/Antiochus_Epiphanes_and_Herod_the_Great._Part_Two_The_King_of_Daniel_11

He there cites at length an account by Philip Mauro and then inserts a few comments on his own.

From Philip Mauro's account:

According to one view (that presented by Smith's Bible Dictionary and other reputable authorities such as Taylor) this portion of the prophecy (Dan 11:36 to end) has still to do with Antiochus Epiphanes, and that tyrant is "the king" of verse 36. That view of the passage is necessitated by the general scheme of interpretation adopted in the work referred to, which makes the first coming of Christ and the Kingdom He then established, to be the "stone," which strikes the great image of Gentile dominion upon its feet (Dan 2:34,35). Now, inasmuch as it is a matter of Bible fact, as well as of familiar history, that Christ did not come into destructive collision with the Roman empire, but rather strengthened it, this scheme of interpretation is compelled to ignore the Roman empire, and to make up the four world-powers by counting Media as one and Persia as another. This makes Greece the fourth, instead of the third, and compels the idea that the entire 11th chapter has to do with the Greek era.

Mackey’s comment:

Which might actually be the correct scenario after all.

Now, my own view is, Fourth Beast is actually Rome, but as a Republic (republics being different, if not from Carthage or Athens or Corinth, at least from the other empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece / Macedon / Hellenism).

Why so? Antiochus Epiphanes was acting under restraints imposable by Roman Senate.

But, on the other hand,

it is a matter of Bible fact, as well as of familiar history, that Christ did not come into destructive collision with the Roman empire, but rather strengthened it,

and I won't disagree. However, this was after Rome was already what is now called an Empire. It was after an Empire directed politically by the Senate had become an Empire directed by the commander in chief of its Imperium or military command.

This tended to sanitise Rome somewhat. We still have Nero and Domitian, but we also have nearly loveable people like Augustus* or Nerva.

Historically, parliaments have in recent centuries often committed heavy errors of judgement, absent from kings of previous ones. I think the personal power of the Emperor was a restraining force, keeping the mystery of iniquity at bay.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St John of Damascus
27.III.2018

* Before you call Augustus loveable full scale use of the word, consider he forced his stepson Tiberius to a divorce and remarriage.