Clarke's Commentary on Dan. 2.
The Chaldean empire called the Assyrian in its commencement, the Chaldean from the country, the Babylonish from its chief city. 1. HEAD OF GOLD. This was the first monarchy began by Nimrod, A. M. 1771, B. C. 2233, and ending with the death of Belshazzar, A. M. 3466, B. C. 538, after having lasted nearly seventeen hundred years. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar it extended over Chaldea, Assyria, Arabia, Syria and Palestine. He, Nebuchadnezzar, was the head of gold. 2. BREAST AND ARMS OF SILVER. The Medo-Persian empire; which properly began under Darius the Mede, allowing him to be the same with Cyaxares son of Astyages, and uncle to Cyrus the great, son of Cambyses. He first fought under his uncle Cyaxares; defeated Neriglissar, king of the Assyrians, and Crasus, king of the Lydians; and by the capture of Babylon, B. C. 538, terminated the Chaldean empire. On the death of his father Cambyses, and his uncle Cyaxares, B. C. 536, he became sole governor of the Medes and Persians, and thus established a potent empire on the ruins of that of the Chaldeans. 3. BELLY AND THIGHS OF BRASS. The Macedonian or Greek empire, founded by Alexander the Great. He subdued Greece, penetrated into Asia, took Tyre, reduced Egypt, overthrew Darius Codomannus at Arbela, Oct. 2, A. M. 3673, B. C. 331, and thus terminated the Persian monarchy. He crossed the Caucasus and subdued Hyrcania, and penetrated India as far as the Ganges; and having conquered all the countries that lay between the Adriatic sea and this river, the Ganges, he died A. M. 3681, B. C. 323, and after his death his empire became divided among his generals, Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. CASSANDER had Macedon and Greece; LYSIMACHUS had Thrace and those parts of Asia which lay on the Hellespont and Bosphorus; PTOLEMY had Egypt, Lydia, Arabia, Palestine, and Cœlesyria; SELEUCUS had Babylon, Media, Susiana, Persia, Assyria, Bactria, Hyrcania, and all other provinces, even to the Ganges. Thus this empire founded on the ruin of that of the Persians, “had rule over all the earth.”