The Roman Empire

Daniel 2 symbolically presents a sequence of four major kingdoms: Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Each nation would conquer the previous kingdom, and eventually, that nation would be defeated by another political power.

The fourth kingdom was the Roman Empire, which formally became an empire when Augustus Caesar became the first emperor of Rome in 31 BC.

At its height, the empire was the most extensive and powerful political and social structure in Western civilization. Nevertheless, the great Roman Empire fell on September 4, AD 476, when Romulus Augustus in the west was deposed by the Germanic king Flavius Odoacer. The eastern part of the empire survived as the Byzantine Empire until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

What caused the decline and fall of the Roman Empire? That is a very complex issue, and many theories have been suggested. In 1776, Edward Gibbon suggested, “The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.” From a human perspective, the fall of Rome was caused mainly by political, economic, and social factors.

From a biblical perspective, we recognize that “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses” (Daniel 4:32).

Ellen White explains, “Every nation that has come upon the stage of action has been permitted to occupy its place on the earth, that it might be seen whether it would fulfill the purpose of ‘the Watcher and the Holy One.’... Each had its period of test, each failed, its glory faded, its power departed, and its place was occupied by another.” God is leading human history to its climax —the establishment of His own everlasting kingdom that “will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people” (Daniel 2:44, NIV).