Anti-Imperial Subtexts in Paul 321 be little doubt that this is a reference to the well-known Roman imperial motif of the goddess Roma sitting on the seven hills of Rome. Thus, the intratextual and intertextual allusions in the book of Revelation make it abundantly clear that author identifies the beast with the fourth kingdom of Daniel on the one hand and with Rome on the other. c. Josephus picks up the story of Daniel in Book 10 of his Antiquities. He relates Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezer’s dream quite extensively in Ant. 10.203-210, explaining that the second kingdom represents two kings who will destroy Nebuchadnezer’s kingdom (Darius and Cyrus). Their kingdom will be overrun by that of a ruler from the West (Alexander), and his kingdom will in turn be destroyed by the fourth kingdom which, Josephus notes, is represented by iron. It becomes sufficiently clear that he associates Rome with this fourth kingdom when we juxtapose this text with Josephus’ account of the vision of the ram and the male goat of Dan 8 in Ant. 10:269-276. There Josephus outlines the succession of kingdoms as we have iterated them above, referring explicitly to the Medes, Persians, Greeks, and Antiochus Epiphanes IV. This is followed by the statement that “in the same manner Daniel also wrote about the Roman government, namely, that [our country] would be destroyed by them” (Ant. 10:276b). Now Antiochus Epiphanes IV is the end of the story as far as Dan 8 is concerned, so if Josephus is convinced that Daniel had, in fact, prophesied about Rome, particularly that Judea would be destroyed by Rome, it is clear that this notion could only have been generated by Josephus’ reading of Dan 2 and 7. Josephus’ reluctance to explicitly identify Rome with Daniel’s fourth kingdom is understandable, given that this kingdom, as well, will be destroyed by God’s eternal kingdom. That is not a message that would have sat well with Josephus’ Flavian benefactors, and it is not surprising that he consistently suppresses this part of the prophecy. d. Fourth Ezra’s famous vision of an eagle coming up out of the sea (4 Ezra 11) could hardly have alluded more clearly to Rome. While opinions differ as to the identity of the various referents in this allegorical text (mostly as a function of the dating of the vision) (58), Stone is surely right when he states that “[t]he central point in any (58) I accept the standard dating of 4 Ezra in the waning years of the first century C.E.