AROUSED AGAINST THE KING OF THE SOUTH

God's angel continued with the prophecy, saying:  "He [the king of the north] will arouse his power and his heart against the king of the south with a great military force; and the king of the south, for his part, will excite himself for excite himself for the war with an exceedingly great and mighty military force.  And he [the king of the north] will  not stand, because they will scheme out against him schemes. And the very ones eating his delicacies will bring his breakdown. And as for his military force, it will be flooded away, and many will certainly fall down slain." -Daniel 11:25, 26. 

 About 300 years after Octavian had made Egypt a Roman province, Roman Emperor Aurelian assumed the role of the kin gof the north. Meanwhile, Queen Septimia Zenobia of the Roman colony of Palmyra occupied the position of the king of the south."  The Palmyra army occupied Egypt in 269 C.E. under the pretext of making it secure for Rome. Zenobia wanted to make Palmyra the dominant city in the east and wanted to rule over Rome's eastern provinces. Alarmed by her ambition, Aurelian aroused "his power and his heart" to proceed against Zenobia. 

As the ruling entity headed by Zenobia, the king of the south "excited himself' for warfare against the king of the north "with an exceedingly great and mighty military force" under two generals, Zabdas and Zabbai.  But Aurelian took Egypt  and then launched an expedition into Asia Minor and Syria. Zenobia  was defeated at Emesa (now Homs), whereupon she retreated to Palmyra.  When Aurelian besieged that city, Zenobia valiantly defended it but without success. She and her son fled toward Persia, only to be captured by the Romans at the Euphrates River. The Palmyrenes surrendered their city in 272 C.E. Aurelian spared Zenobia, making her the prize feature in his triumphal procession  through Rome in 274 C.E. She spent the rest of her life as a Roman matron.

Aurelian himself did not stand because of schemes against him.'  In 275 C.E., he set out on an expedition against the Persians. While he was waiting in Thrace for the opportunity to cross the straits into Asia Minor, those who 'ate his food' carried out schemes against him and brought  about his  "breakdown."  He was going to call his secretary Eros to account for his regularities. Eros, however forged  a list of names of certain officers marked for death. The sight of this list moved the officers to plot Aurelian's assassination and to murder him. 

The career of the king of the north did not end with the death of Emperor Aurelian. Other Roman rulers followed. For a time, there was an emperor of the wast and one of the east.  Under these men the "military force" of the king of the north was "flooded away," or "scattered," and many 'fell down slain'  because of  the invasion of the Germanic tribes from the north. Goths broke through the Roman frontiers in the fourth century C.E., German leader Odacer removed the last emperor ruling from Rome. By the beginning of the sixth century, the Roman Empire in the west had been  shattered, and German kings ruled in Britannia, Gaul, Italy, North Africa, and Spain. The eastern part of the empire lasted into the 15th century.  

Next time: A GREAT EMPIRE IS DIVIDED

From the book:  PAY ATTENTION TO DANIEL'S PROPHECY! 1999