made friendship with his brother that winter; and Antiochus, returning the next spring An.  Nabonass. 580, to besiege both the brothers in Alexandria, was met in the way by the Roman Ambassadors, Popilius Laena, C.  Decimius, and C.  Hostilius:  he offered them his hand to kiss, but Popilius delivering to him the tables wherein the message of the Senate was written, bad him read those first.  When he had read them, he replied he would consider with his friends what was fit to be done; but Popilius drawing a circle about him, bad him answer before he went out of it:  Antiochus, astonished at this blunt and unusual imperiousness, made answer he would do what the Romans demanded; and then Popilius gave the King his hand to kiss, and he returned out of Egypt.  The same year, An.  Nabonass. 580, his captains by his order spoiled and slaughtered the Jews, profaned the Temple, set up the worship of the heathen Gods in all Judea, and began to persecute and make war upon those who would not worship them:  which actions are thus described by Daniel. [10] At the time appointed he shall come again towards the South_, but the latter shall not be as the former.  For the ships of Chittim shall come_, with an embassy from Rome, against him.  Therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant.  So shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.

In the same year that Antiochus by the command of the Romans retired out of Egypt, and set up the worship of the Greeks in Judea; the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the fundamental kingdom of the Empire of the Greeks, and reduced it into a Roman Province; and thereby began to put an end to the reign of Daniel’s third Beast.  This is thus exprest by Daniel. And after him Arms, that is the Romans, shall stand up.  As [Hebrew:  MMLK] signifies after the King, Dan. xi. 8; so [Hebrew:  MMNW] may signify after him. Arms are every where in this Prophecy of Daniel put for the military power of a kingdom:  and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful.  Hitherto Daniel described the actions of the Kings of the North and South; but upon the conquest of Macedon by the Romans, he left off describing the actions of the Greeks, and began to describe those of the Romans in Greece.  They conquered Macedon, Illyricum and Epirus, in the year of Nabonassar 580. 35 years after, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia westward of mount Taurus; 69 years after they conquered the kingdom