Over the last few weeks we have addressed the matter of the four kingdoms that arose out of Greece after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C.. As we described in Reduction of the Diadochi, The Bounds of their Habitation, and The Shifting Frame, Asia Minor and Thrace together comprised the Northern Kingdom; Syria, Babylon and beyond, the Eastern. Yet even though the commentaries at Daniel 8:8 and 11:4 almost universally agree that Asia Minor with Thrace comprised the Northern Kingdom in an Alexandrian Frame of Reference, the commentaries just as universally shift to a Judæan Frame at Daniel 11:5. In that shifted frame of reference the “King of the North” in 11:6 is presumed to refer to Syria, which only two verses  earlier had been part of the Eastern Kingdom. No explanation is given for this change of reference except that it appears to make sense of the chapter, and further that the tradition of the shifting frame is to be received as authoritative for its antiquity. It is, after all, an ancient tradition.

However, as we  showed last week in “When North Was North…,” the introduction of the Judæan Frame of Reference at Daniel 11:5 is completely unnecessary. As it turns out, the Seleucids fulfilled the prophecy of the King of the North not because they were from Syria north of Jerusalem, but because they had conquered Lysimachus and now ruled Asia Minor and Thrace, which was the Northern Kingdom in the Alexandrian Frame of Reference. The North-South narrative in Daniel 11 begins only after the Seleucids are already in possession of Lysimachus’ domains, and they continue to be called “King of the North” so long as they possess Asia Minor and Thrace (Daniel 11:6-18). At the Battle of Magnesia and the subsequent Treaty of Apamea (Daniel 11:18), the Seleucids are dispossessed of Asia Minor and Thrace and are constrained to remain in their Syrian domains. Henceforth they are no longer called “King of the North” (Daniel 11:19-39). Daniel is rigidly consistent in this, but it is only when Daniel 11 is read in its natural Alexandrian Frame that this distinction emerges. That is what makes the introduction of a Judæan Frame at 11:5 so counterproductive to Christian eschatology. Eschatologists have historically imposed the Judæan Frame to make the prophecy converge with history by making Syria the northern kingdom, but that actually creates a synthetic history in which the Seleucids are called “Syrian” at a time when it is least appropriate to do so.

Esteemed historian of the Seleucid era, Edwyn Robert Bevan, helps put a fine point on our objection to the Judæan Frame. As he explains, it is only after the Treaty of Apamea that the Seleucid line at last “was become the kingdom of Syria” (Bevan, House of Seleucus, vol 2, London: Edward Arnold (1902) 115). Prior to Apamea, he insists, “Asia Minor was in fact considered the real home of the earlier Seleucids.” It “is never so inappropriate to speak of the [Seleucid] dynasty as ‘Syrian’ as in these earlier reigns” (Bevan, vol 1,  150-51n). Yet it is in those earlier reigns that the Judæan Frame insists that they must be Syrian. 

In sum, when the Seleucid rulers were called “King of the North” (Daniel 11:6-18), they were ruling Asia Minor and Thrace, and they were not truly Syrian. When they were truly Syrian (Daniel 11:19-39), they were not ruling Asia Minor and Thrace, and they were not called “King of the North.” Two conclusions necessarily follow from this: 1) North refers to Asia Minor and Thrace, and 2) “King of the North” refers to its rulers. To put it another way, the appellation “King of the North” is meant in an Alexandrian Frame of Reference—indicating the ruler of Asia Minor and Thrace—and the title attaches not to a particular dynasty, but to whomever is ruling the particular geography.

That distinction in Scripture is entirely lost, of course, when modern translations (e.g., NIV, NLT, GWT) continue at Daniel 11:28 to refer to the now Syrian Kings as “King of the North,” something Daniel does not actually do in the original text. That gratuitous interpolation, along with the eschatologists’ insistence on imposing a Judæan Frame at 11:5, have both worked catastrophically against us. The translations have been modified and the Judæan Frame has been imposed in order to “help” us understand the chapter, and yet the “helpful” adjustments to the text have merely cloaked its meaning. They are of no help at all. 

The same objection may be raised regarding the identification of the King of the South. As we demonstrated in The Shifting Frame, all manner of nationality and geography is used freely to describe everything else in chapter 11, but the narrator will not divulge that information about the two warring kings. The Kings are simply referred to by their cardinal directions in an Alexandrian Frame—North and South. Just as the angelic narrator never calls Syria the King of the North, the angel never actually calls Egypt the King of the South. Although he plainly refers to Egypt multiple times (Daniel 11:8, 42, 43), he never identifies Egypt proper as the southern kingdom.

Yet to some translators, the temptation to assign a dynastic or national name to the angel’s southern designation has proved too great to resist. In what is billed as a translation of the Septuagint into “contemporary English,” the term for “south” in the Greek (νότου) is simply translated as “Egypt.” Thus 11:5, for example, is rendered “the king of Egypt shall grow strong” (A New English Translation of the Septuagint, edited by Albert Pietersma, Benjamin G. Wright, (Oxford University Press, ©2007) 1019). But that blanket inference is unwarranted. As can readily be seen throughout the chapter, the angel never equates “south” with Egypt, and provides no indication in the text that Egypt and “King of the South” are equivalent. When the angel means “Egypt,” he says so plainly. When he says “south,” he avoids saying whether he means Egypt or the other possessions of the Southern Kingdom, and there were many.

The significance of this from an eschatological perspective may be seen in the fact that the holdings of the Ptolemies—once the Diadochi had been reduced to four—extended well beyond Egypt’s borders. As Roger Bagnall reminds us, before Seleucus ever invaded Lysimachus’ possessions in Asia Minor within the Taurus in 281 B.C., Ptolemy’s kingdom included not only Coele-Syria, Cyprus and Palestine, but also significant portions of Asia Minor without the Taurus. These expansive Ptolemaic dominions had been accumulated very gradually in the 42 years since Alexander’s death:

“To students of antiquity—indeed, to the literate public—the name of the Ptolemies immediately suggests Egypt, which they ruled for nearly three centuries from the death of Alexander the Great to that of Cleopatra VII in 30 B.C.. The association is not unjustified, for Egypt was the first dynastic possession to be acquired… But Ptolemy I had no sooner acquired Egypt in the division in Babylon in June, 323, than he began looking outside Egypt; in the ensuing decades he worked cautiously but energetically to create an empire that would complement Egypt. At his death in 283 B.C. he left to his son a collection of possessions including the Cyrenaica, Cyprus, Phoenecia, Palestine, Coele-Syria, and various parts of Asia Minor.” (Bagnall, Roger S, The Adminstration of Ptolemaic Possessions Outside Egypt, (New York: Columbia University, 1976) 1)

As we shall see momentarily, we may now add the Bay of Pamphylia on the southern coast of Asia Minor to Ptolemy’s possessions. While “Egypt” may justifiably be called the first of Ptolemy’s dominions after Alexander, his kingdom cannot be defined by Egypt’s borders. The territories of the King of the South were much more expansive than that. Of critical importance to our understanding of Daniel 11 is the extent of those boundaries. Keeping in mind that the cardinal directions in Daniel attach not to the dynasty but to the geography, we will do well to determine the northern geographic boundary of the Southern Kingdom. That is no trivial task, but due to some recent developments in epigraphy, it is not as difficult as it was only a few decades ago, and that geographic boundary is far, far north of Egypt.

We explained in Reduction of the Diadochi that the period of post-Alexandrian Hellenism is, from an historiographical perspective, one of the darkest periods in human history. There is no continuous historical record from which we can reconstruct the era. Bagnall and Derow lament this dearth of information in their work, The Hellenistic Period:

“…for the period from the end of the fourth century to the Roman triumph a quarter-millennium later … we have no connected, completely preserved, historical accounts, just pieces of varying size here and there.” (Bagnall, Roger S. & Derow, Peter, The Hellenistic Period: Historical Sources in Translation (Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing, 1981, 2004) xxvi)

It is simply one of the most difficult periods in the history of Western Civilization to reconstruct. And yet, there was one aspect of that period that was even darker still, and it is to that aspect of post-Alexandrian Hellenism that we must now turn our attention.

The darkest part of the darkest period in Western Civilization is the hinge upon which Danielic eschatology is forced to turn and it relates to the Ptolemaic possession of Pamphylia, a narrow crescent of fertile land tightly nestled between the Taurus mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Epigraphic and historiographic information on Ptolemaic rule of the territory is in extremely short supply. The Adoulis Inscription celebrates Potlemy III’s reconquest of Pamphylia during the Laodicæan war (Adoulis Inscription, (Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae (OGIS) 54), but does not elaborate upon its first conquest. Strabo refers to “Ptolemaïs, a city” situated on the Bay of Pamphylia (Strabo, Geography, Book XIV.4.2), but does not tell us when that city was founded. A decree celebrates the successful defense of the Pamphylian city of Aspendos, and recognizes among the victors those Pamphylians who “provided good service to king Ptolemaios” (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) 17.639). The date of the Aspendos Decree can be established only with very little certainty, but it has been placed anywhere from 305 to 283 B.C.. It is difficult in any case to tell from the decree the exact King Ptolemy—I Soter or II Philadelphus— to whom the Pamphylians provided their good services. Until relatively recently, these few data were about all the information we had regarding the Ptolemaic administration of Pamphylia. Clearly the Ptolemaic empire, a seafaring dynasty, had an interest in the southern coastline of Asia Minor. But when did the Ptolemies first gain a foothold there?

As T. B. Mitford observed of Pamphylia in particular, “the quality and duration of this Egyptian domination is indeed one of the darkest problems of Hellenistic history” (American Journal of Archaeology, 65, pp.93-151, Mitford T.B.), and as Getzel Cohen concedes, “the situation of Pamphylia in the third century B.C. was as [Ernst] Meyer has remarked, ‘etwas unklar'” (Cohen, Getzel M, The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands and Asia Minor (University of California Press, 1995) 335n ). “Somewhat unclear,” was in fact, a gross understatement.

Andrew Meadows, Oxford University Professor of Ancient History, explains just how mysterious this puzzle is to those who wish to study post-Alexandrian Hellenism in Asia Minor. Ptolemy’s overseas kingdom, based on the extremely limited epigraphic evidence, appears simply to blossom from nothing in the early third century B.C., and no recorded account of its rise has yet been found:

“The Ptolemaic empire overseas came, as it were, from nowhere. … Not a single ancient historical account survives of the process whereby this overseas empire came into being. As a result, few modern accounts deal with the problem in anything more than a cursory fashion; and who can blame them? What little documentary evidence there is for the early history of this empire is fragmentary, disjointed and far from providing the means to create a connected narrative account.” (Meadows, Andrew, Deditio in fidem: the Ptolemaic Conquest of Asia Minor, in Imperialism, Cultural Politics, & Polybius, eds. C. Smith and L. M. Yarrow. Oxford: 113–33. (2012))

When indeed did the Ptolemies subjugate Pamphylia? Until only very recently it has been difficult to say. Even in 1976, Bagnall held that Ptolemaic administration of Pamphylia could be attested no earlier than the 5th year of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and by Bagnall’s calculations that was 278 B.C., several years after the Battle of Corupedium. The evidence brought forward for this date is the Termessos Inscription, uncovered in 1966, which describes an Egyptian official presiding in inland Pamphylia, ostensibly under the title “Pamphyliarch.” Bagnall writes,

“The earliest securely datable testimony for the Ptolemies [in Pamphylia] comes from Termessos, in a decree of that city dated to the reign of Ptolemy II, year 5 (late 278), honoring Philippos son of Alexandros, Macedonian… The end of the phrase is restored, no doubt correctly, by L. Robert as Παμφυλί[αρχης]. The remainder of the stone is lost, and we do not know what the services of this Pamphyliarch were. His discovery is, however, valuable evidence that Ptolemy II had one official appointed to govern the entire area of Pamphylia, and that Termessos, on the border between Pamphylia and Pisidia, came within his competence. … About the nature of the administration little can be said. The Pamphyliarch, a regional governor, is the most significant indication we have. It is not improbable that he had some city commandants and garrisons under him, but they have left no record. One has the impression of a series of strongholds along the coast, rather than a pacified countryside, but Termessos shows that this situation need not have been the case. New finds may yet greatly expand this limited picture.” (Bagnall, 111, 114)

Until 1976, that was all we had. But as Bagnall anticipated, new finds came to light, and by 1978 another inscription was discovered, this time in Telmessus, greatly enhancing our understanding of Ptolemaic administration of the southern coast of Asia Minor. This inscription was dated to the 4th year of Ptolemy II, but along with the new discovery came another development of profound significance. The system of dating the epigraphic data, so it was discovered, had been off by as much as four years, and that moved Ptolemaic control of the region four years earlier than Bagnall had imagined when he placed Ptolemy’s “Pamphyliarch” in 278  B.C.. What was becoming clear from the historical data was that even before Corupedium, Pamphylia had been firmly part of the Ptolemaic empire:

“When Wörrle published the [Telmessus] stone, he took the fourth year of Ptolemy II to be 279/8. But matters have since moved on: more recent research by E. Grzybek has shown that, at the time of his father’s death, Philadelphus retrojected his regnal dating to the beginning of his joint rule with his father. Thus it is now clear that the fourth year is in fact 283/2 BC. Our Telmessian decree is most probably dated, therefore, August or September 282. This is no small difference, since the inscription is thus moved from after the battle of Corupedim to the time just before it. … As is now clear from the Telmessus decree, by August/September 282 the Telmessians regarded themselves as being part of the Ptolemaic empire, and relying on the military support of [Ptolemy’s two generals] Philocles and Aristoteles.” (Meadows, Deditio in fidem)

Based on the discovery of the Telmessus Inscription, as well as a more detailed epigraphic analysis of the Termessos Inscription, Meadows was able to correct Wörrle and Robert on two critical points. The reconstructed title of a “Pamphyliarch” on the Termessos stone was better read “strategos” or “oikonomos of Pamphylia,” and further, the date of the Termessos Inscription could now be moved safely back into the late 280s B.C., as well. He wrote,

“The [Termessos] decree is dated to the month of Audnaios in the 5th year of Ptolemy Philadelphus’ reign, c. September/ October 281 BC, and thus offers remarkably early evidence for Ptolemaic control of the region.” (Meadows, Andrew -Thonemann, Peter, The Ptolemaic Administration of Pamphylia, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 186 (2013) 223–226)

“While we may not be able to answer the major question of how the Ptolemaic empire came into being from the literary sources, there is now documentary evidence which opens a window on Ptolemaic activity in Asia Minor in the late 280s...” (Meadows, Deditio in fidem)

Meadows’ work on the Ptolemaic administration of Pamphylia is nothing short of remarkable. Because of the epigraphic discoveries of just the last fifty years “we may now reconstruct a far more uniform system of Ptolemaic administration along the coast of Asia Minor in the early years of [Ptolemy II] Philadelphus’ reign” (Meadows, The Ptolemaic Administration of Pamphylia). Those “early years” of Ptolemy II’s reign were the years from 285 – 283 B.C. when he was administering the kingdom along side his father, Ptolemy I, the first ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The Aspendos Decree, plus the Termessos and Telmessus Inscriptions, as well as the recalibration of the dating system, have only recently moved Ptolemaic administration of the southern coast of Asia Minor back into the 280s B.C.. This early dating of Ptolemaic administration of Pamphylia had been the stuff of speculation and guesswork only a century ago, and it is only now that the darkest part of the darkest period in post-Alexandrian history is coming into the light.

Overseas empires of course do not spring up overnight out of nothing. The fact that a Ptolemaic presence in Pamphylia appears suddenly in the epigraphic record by the late 280s B.C. indicates that the Ptolemaic presence and influence in the region was in its formative stages at the very time when the Diadochi were establishing the boundaries of the four successor kingdoms. As we described in Reduction of the Diadochi, it was only in the 280s B.C. that the boundaries of the four successor dynasties were even approaching some degree of relative stability. Clearly, the bulk of the southern coast of Asia Minor had gone to the King of the South in that same decade. The Southern Kingdom, as we now know, clearly therefore included the narrow crescent of land that forms the Bay of Pamphylia, a beachhead of incalculable value to the seafaring Ptolemic dynasty.

Our geographical, historical and Scriptural corroboration for this is not wanting. Strabo, for example, takes great pains in his Geography to establish the fact that the known world is divided—north and south—not by the sea coast of Asia Minor, but rather by the Taurus Mountains themselves:

“…for the Taurus stretches in a straight course with the sea that begins at the Pillars [the Strait of Gibraltar], and divides all Asia lengthwise into two parts, thus making one part of it northern, the other southern.” (Strabo, Geography, Book 2.1.1)

Later in the chapter he returns to the “division of the inhabited world along the line of the Taurus Range” (Strabo, Geography, Book 2.1.40), and yet again, “Asia is divided in two by the Taurus Range, which stretches from the capes of Pamphylia to the eastern sea at India” (Strabo, Geography, Book 2.5.31). Here Strabo claims that, on account of the Taurus mountains, Pamphylia—both in clime and contour—is to be grouped with Egypt rather than with the Anatolian plateau to the north (Strabo, Geography, Book 2.5.32). The implication is clear enough. The Taurus mountains had formed such an imposing boundary that Pamphylia was easier to group with Egypt to the south than with cis-Tauric Asia to the north. Truly, the Lord “hath determined … the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26), and that boundary had been determined by His Taurus mountains range. The significance of that natural boundary was lost neither on Strabo nor on the Ptolemies.

From Scripture, too, we have corroborating evidence that the southern coast of Asia Minor was indeed part of the Kingdom of the South. At Daniel 11:15, while the Seleucids were yet in possession of Asia Minor and Thrace, the King of the North is prophesied to “come, and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand.” This prophecy found its fulfillment in Pamphylia, clearly identifying the territory as a holding of the King of the South.

Most commentaries, with their view unnecessarily constrained by the Judæan Frame of Reference, seek the fulfillment of Daniel 11:15 in Antiochus III’s siege of Sidon in Coele-Syria, as suggested by Jerome (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:15). There may indeed have been a siege at Sidon (Jerome’s mention of the siege in his commentary is the only record of it), but there was another siege that took place almost within view of Sidon, only on a different coastline. Because of the Judæan Frame of Reference that is traditionally imposed on the chapter, the siege has been largely ignored by almost all commentaries on Daniel, and it took place at the Ptolemaic stronghold of Coracesium in the Bay of Pamphylia.

As we saw last week at Daniel 11:7, Jerome imposed the Judæan Frame on the chapter, and therefore could not grasp the fact that Seleucus II had actually been ruling with his mother in Ephesus in Asia Minor rather than in Syria at Daniel 11:7 as he claimed (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:7-9). Likewise, the commentaries rely on the Judæan Frame for their interpretation, and therefore universally focus on Ptolemy III’s reduction of Syria, Babylon and Persia at 11:7, completely overlooking the fact that it was Asia Minor and Thrace that Ptolemy reduced in the same campaign in order to avenge Berenice and her son (Canopus Decree, 6; The Adoulis Inscription, OGIS 54; Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius, Book 27.3). Similarly, in their reliance on the Judæan Frame, eschatologists can only see that Ptolemy III brought treasures and idols back from Persia, but are unable to see that Ptolemy III returned them along “with the rest of the treasure” that he brought back from Asia Minor and Thrace (The Adoulis Inscription, OGIS 54). Just so, the commentaries almost universally miss the fact that Antiochus III reduced the entire southern coast of Asia Minor right after his successes in Coele-Syria. In other words, in prophecy, it is not only Coele-Syria, but also the southern coast of Asia Minor, that belonged to the King of the South, and it was there that his “most fenced cities” were located.

Livius records Antiochus III’s campaign against the Ptolemaic coastline in his History of Rome. Just after his reduction of Coele-Syria, Antiochus III turns the full force of his military establishment against the Ptolemaic strongholds that dotted the southern coast, systematically reducing the coastline with an armada of 300 ships:

“During the previous summer Antiochus had reduced all the cities in Coelo-Syria which had been under Ptolemy’s sway, and though he had now withdrawn into winter quarters he displayed as great activity as he had done during the summer. He had called up the whole strength of his kingdom and had amassed enormous forces, both military and naval. At the commencement of spring he had sent his two sons, Ardys and Mithridates, with an army to Sardis with instructions to wait for him there whilst he started by sea with a fleet of a hundred decked ships and two hundred smaller vessels, including swift pinnaces and Cyprian barques. His object was … to attempt the reduction of the cities along the whole coastline of Cilicia, Lycia and Caria which owed allegiance to Ptolemy...” (Livius, History of Rome, Book 33.19)

Livius introduces us to the naval campaign in progress, and Antiochus III “had so far secured Zephyrium, Soli, Aphrodisias and Corycus, and after rounding Anemurium—another Cilician headland—had captured Selinus. All these towns and other fortified places on this coast had submitted to him either voluntarily or under the stress of fear, but Coracesium unexpectedly shut its gates against him.” Thus, Antiochus had no option but to surround and besiege Coracesium. Livius leaves off his narrative while “Antiochus was at the time investing Coracesium” as he receives a demand from the Rhodians that he cease and desist. Antiochus III politely declines and the Rhodians return home to warn their coastal cities of Antiochus III’s campaign (Livius, History of Rome, Book 33.20). Livius provides no details of the outcome of his siege of the stronghold at Coracesium, but he had noted three paragraphs earlier just how vulnerable such cities are to the construction of seigeworks, even when attacked from the sea.

“The city of Leucas,” for example, is at sea level, and so Livius observes, “[t]his makes it open to attack both by land and sea, for the shallow waters are more like a lagoon than like the sea, and the soil of the surrounding plain can easily be thrown up for lines of investment and siege works” (Livius, History of Rome, Book 33.17). As can be seen here, Coracesium (modern day Alanya) means “protruding city,” making it easy to surround in a naval assault, and Livius has Antiochus III investing Coracesium from the sea.

Remarkably, Jerome was actually aware of Antiochus’ reduction of Coracesium. He even makes passing reference to it at Daniel 11:15, but—focused as he was on his Judæan Frame, and unaware that Pamphylia was part of the Southern Kingdom in an Alexandrian Frame—Jerome misses the connection and does not realize that Antiochus III was besieging a stronghold in the southern territory:

“And as for the statement, ‘He shall cast up a mound,’ this indicates that Antiochus is going to besiege the garrison of Scopas in the citadel of Jerusalem for a long time, while the Jews add their exertions as well. And he is going to capture other cities which had formerly been held by the Ptolemaic faction in Syria, Cilicia and Lycia. For at that time Aphrodisias, Soloe, Zephrion, Mallos, Anemurium, Selenus, Coracesium, Coricus, Andriace, Lymira, Patara, Xanthus, and finally Ephesus were all captured. These things are related by both Greek and Roman historians.” (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:15-16)

It is Coracesium in the Bay of Pamphylia, Livy tells us, that puts up the fiercest resistance along the coastline, closing its gates to Antiochus. This fenced city could not resist the King of the North indefinitely, and was eventually captured. But the Judæan Frame of Reference hides this from our view, keeping us focused instead on Sidon. Not only does this demonstrate what a hindrance the Judæan Frame of Reference is to our understanding of Daniel 11, but it also shows that Pamphylia was surely reckoned as part of the Kingdom of the South. And because the title attaches not to a particular dynasty, but rather to whomever is ruling the particular geography, this little fertile crescent on the coast would play no small part in the fulfillment of the prophecy of the final six verses of Daniel 11, long after the Ptolemies had been dispossessed of it.

As we noted in The Shifting Frame, an Alexandrian Frame of Reference was established for us as early as Daniel 8:8, and is restated for us at 11:4—“toward the four winds of heaven.” The angelic narrator of Daniel 11 never departs from it. It is in the context of this Alexandrian Frame that the narrator proceeds into a detailed description of events with respect to the compass points—north, south and east—as those events unfold within a single frame of reference, all the way through Daniel 11:45. “North” refers to Asia Minor and Thrace, and “South,” as we have shown here, included the Bay of Pamphylia.

We will expound next week upon the significance of this to Daniel 11:40-45. Long after Antiochus IV was dead, long after the Seleucid line had run its course, long after Syria had been reduced to a Roman client state, long after the Ptolemies of Egypt had been effectively reduced to a Roman protectorate—and yet, well before the days of the Caesars—there remained only one independent autocracy left in all the Mediterranean basin. That last remaining  autocracy was based in Pamphylia. It is from his stronghold occupying that pivotal fertile crescent that the King of Pamphylia would launch an offensive that would almost bring the King of Asia Minor and Thrace to his knees. The Northern response to this invasion ended up engulfing the entire Mediterranean basin in war, a war—we must say it—of apocalyptic proportions. It was a conflict so vast in its reach and so sweeping in its effects that the Preterists would have camped on it, had they only noticed its occurrence; the Historicists would laud it, had it only occurred in the era of Papal Rome; and the Dispensationalists would embrace it if it could only be shown to be but a type of a future conflict.

But there will be no future fulfillment of Daniel 11:40-45, and there was no medieval fulfillment of it, either. It is, quite literally, ancient history.