but has grown exceedingly great toward the south, the east and the “beauteous land” of sacred Scripture? What “king” or ruling power of a fierce or bold countenance has arisen and wielded tremendous power in recent centuries? It is the seventh world power foretold in Bible prophecy, the Anglo-American dual world power.

16. Tending toward the arising of the “little horn,” by what western power were the imperial seats of Alexander’s successors reduced to provinces, and in what order?

¹⁶ How did it grow out of one of the horns that symbolized the kingships set up by Alexander’s four generals? In 298 B.C. the male line of General Cassander in Macedonia and Greece ended. Thirteen years later General Lysimachus, who was holding adjacent Thrace and Asia Minor, took possession of the European part of the Macedonian Empire. So one of the empires of Alexander’s successors disappeared. In 168 B.C. Macedonia became dependent upon the rising political power of Rome, and in 146 B.C. it was made a province of Rome. In 64 B.C. Syria, the seat of empire of General Seleucus Nicator, was reduced to a Roman province; and in 30 B.C. Egypt, the imperial seat of General Ptolemy Lagus, became a Roman province.

17. When did the Romans subdue Britain, who made it an independent state for a while and fathered its navy, and when did the Romans quit Britain?

¹⁷ While it was absorbing those Hellenic empires of the Grecian fifth world power, the aggressive Roman power invaded Britain. When Julius Caesar was preparing to make the invasion, he had to destroy a great fleet that included a British contingent of ships. It was by the beginning of the third century A.D. that southern Britain was subdued and divided into Roman provinces. Roman Emperor Septimius Severus finished building his wall there and died at York in Britain A.D. 211. Toward the end of that century General Carausius, a lieutenant of Roman Emperor Maximianus, crossed over into Britain and usurped the throne of Britain, and declared himself Augustus (emperor). After Carausius had defeated the Roman fleet that was sent to chastise him, Rome had to acknowledge his imperial position. “He ruled the country well for seven years when he was murdered in 293 A.D. He made Britain an independent state and incidentally became the ‘father of the British Navy.’”a Three years later Emperor Constantius recovered Britain, and in 306 (A.D.) he too died in York in Britain. The figure of Britannia on money coins was first struck by the Romans. In the fifth century the Romans began gradually withdrawing from Britain, and by A.D. 436 they had quit Britannia.

(To be continued)

“The Last Summer”

In his book The Last Summer, written in 1934, Boris Pasternak referred to the summer of 1914 as “the last summer when life still appeared to pay heed to individuals, and when it was easier and more natural to love than to hate.”