And it kept coming all the way to the ram [representing Medo-Persia, as is evident from Daniel 8:20] possessing the two horns, which I had seen standing before the watercourse; and it came running toward it in its powerful rage. And I saw it coming into close touch with the ram, and it began showing bitterness toward it, and it proceeded to strike down the ram and to break its two horns, and there proved to be no power in the ram to stand before it. So it threw it to the earth and trampled it down, and the ram proved to have no deliverer out of its hand.

In relation to the Medo-Persian Empire, Greece lay to the west. So it was from the west or “sunset” that the Grecian goat pushed eastward. With lightning speed, as if ‘not touching the ground,’ the Greco-Macedonian Empire expanded. It took Alexander the Great only about seven years of fighting to extend his dominion over Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, the vast Medo-Persian Empire and even parts of India. Little wonder that the Greco-Macedonian Empire is also portrayed in Scripture as a winged leopard. (Dan. 7:6) The mighty Medo-Persian “ram” stood helpless before the assaulting Grecian goat.