Daniel was about the persecutions to Hellenize the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
In the ancient world, this helps explain the four empires represented by four animals in Daniel 7. Since the Bible often refers to demons in beastly terms of wild animals, the imagery also reveals to us the demonic powers at work behind each of the four empires that would rule over God’s people as discipline for their disobedience.
As an interpretive clue, the horn is an ancient symbol for the rule of kings over kingdoms.
Winged Lion – Babylon was the focus of Daniel 1-4 and is here revealed as the first kingdom.
Bear – The imbalanced bear was a prophecy about the joint Medo-Persian Empire in which the Persian side was larger and more dominant. The overtaking of Babylon by this empire was the focus of Daniel 5.
Winged Leopard – This was a prophecy about the future coming of the Greek empire which would conquer the Persian empire and expand beyond it.
This prophecy came true when Alexander the Great, by his early thirties, had conquered the known world with lightning speed, metaphorically running by and flying over his enemies. Alexander died young without an heir, and so his empire was split between four generals as predicted in Daniel’s vision.
Beast – The Roman empire is depicted as a demonic monstrosity of animals & weapons and it came to become the largest and longest standing empire in world history. Jesus Christ was born, tried, and murdered by the Roman empire.