And 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.”​—Dan. 8:5-8.

The description of the “conspicuous” or “great horn” well fits Alexander the Great. He was the aggressive spearhead of the tremendous territorial conquests. Not long after his death in the thirty-third year of life, four ‘horns’ or rulers gained control of portions of Alexander’s vast dominions.

About twenty-two years after the “great horn” Alexander was “broken” in death, four of his generals were fully established in power. Seleucus Nicator ruled Mesopotamia and Syria. Cassander had control over Macedonia and Greece. Egypt and Palestine made up the domain of Ptolemy Lagus. Lysimachus had dominion over Thrace and Asia Minor. Thus the mighty empire that had been built up by Alexander the Great took on the appearance of a four-headed leopard, as described at Daniel 7:6: “After this I kept on beholding, and, see there! another beast, one like a leopard, but it had four wings of a flying creature on its back. And the beast had four heads, and there was given to it rulership indeed.”

Truly Daniel’s prophecy concerning the Grecian Empire, especially in connection with Alexander the Great, had a remarkable fulfillment. This has long been recognized. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus reports that Alexander was at Jerusalem and had Daniel’s prophecy shown to him. As to the conqueror’s reaction, Josephus writes: “When the book of Daniel was shown to him, in which he had declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he believed himself to be the one indicated.” While many today doubt that this occurred, the fact that Josephus mentions this tradition confirms that Alexander the Great was viewed as having fulfilled prophecy.

The Bible is indeed accurate in depicting developments in the Grecian Empire under the figure of a goat and a winged four-headed leopard.