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Who Is the Beast? History Reveals Mystery
Part 1: The Sea Beast
A land beast:
Hazon 13:1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having
seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of
blasphemy.
A sea beast:
Hazon 13:11. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like
a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
These beasts have been an enigma for centuries. Who are they? Are they coming or have they come and
gone? There is more than one answer! But when understood in the context of history, the identities of the
two beasts and their heads and horns are quite certain. Hazon 17 clearly tells the identity of the first beast.
Hazon 17:3. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast who was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven
heads and ten horns. … 18. “And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings
of the earth.”
If this lewd woman is Rome, then the beast she is astride of is the Roman Empire of the first century.
Hazon 17:6. And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her I marveled greatly. 7. But the angel said to me, "Why marvel? I will tell you the mystery of
the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.
That the beast is the Roman Empire is confirmed in
Hazon 13:2. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard,
and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the
mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat,
and great authority.
This is an empire in succession to and incorporating the four
beast / empires of Daniel 7:3ff., 7:17ff. –

Beast 1 Babylon: Lion / Eagle / Man; King Nebuchadnezzar.

Beast 2 Media: Bear; King Astyages (or Darius).

Beast 3 Persia: Leopard with wings and heads; King Cyrus.

Beast 4 Macedonia: Iron teeth, ten horns; King Alexander the Great.
The Roman Empire is never foreseen in Daniel; many popular
prophecy teachers mistake beast 4 for Rome.
The Roman Republic
Hazon 17:9. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads
are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; 10. they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen,
one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while.
Rome was a republic up until after the reign of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.). (The United States is also a
republic.)
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Republic: A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for
officers and representatives responsible to them.
Caesar was assassinated by republicans because of the mandate given him by the people to rule (rather than
the Senate). Julius Caesar was extremely popular with the people, since he was a war hero. This is why Julius
Caesar doesn’t qualify as one of the heads – the Roman Republic was not yet the beastly Empire.
But Julius’ heir, Octavian, was able, during his long reign, to wrest complete power from the republicans.
Rome became an Empire under Octavian, who was also known as Caesar Augustus.
Empire: A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled
by a single supreme authority.
The Seven Heads / Kings
Head #1: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus “Augustus” (reigned 27 BC - AD 14) “Roman
statesman who established the Roman Empire and became emperor in 27 BC; defeated Mark
Anthony and Cleopatra in 31 BC at Actium.”[1] Jesus was born during his reign (Luke 2:1). After
a successful, even “august,” forty-year reign, Augustus became feeble, ill and nearly 80 years
old – a very ripe age at that time. Though it’s uncertain, Augustus may have been poisoned or
smothered by a family member.
Head #2: “Tiberius” Claudius Nero Caesar Augustus (AD 14 - 37) was “son-in-law of Augustus
who became a suspicious tyrannical Emperor of Rome after a brilliant military career.” Jesus
was crucified during his reign. Tiberius spent most of his final years in his palace on the Isle of
Capri, living a very hedonistic and immoral life-style. Caligula was his adopted heir and the
victim of his pederasty. Tiberius was finally smothered. The Sea of Galilee was named after
him (“Sea of Tiberias”).
Head #3: Gaius Claudius Caesar Germanicus “Caligula,” adopted son of Tiberius (reigned 37 - 41) “whose
uncontrolled passions resulted in manifest insanity; noted for his cruelty and tyranny; was
assassinated.” Caligula ordered his statue to be set up and worshiped in the Jerusalem Temple,
but was murdered before it came to pass.
Hazon 13: 4. And they worshipped the dragon (i.e. the devil) which gave power unto the beast
(i.e. the empire): and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is
able to make war with him? (The religion of the Roman Empire was the worship of a variety of
gods, including the “genius” of Roman Emperor, who was deified. In the Roman Empire, a person could
generally worship as they pleased as long as that person first worshiped the genius of the Emperor. There was
only one other power that could take on the Roman Empire – that is, the Parthian Empire, or Persia.)
5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies (Caligula was a friend to the Herods and would
have his image worshiped in the Holy of Holies); and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. (6, the number
of man x 7, the number of fulfilled time. Caligula reigned about three and a half years.)
6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
(Caligula, and other Emperors, such as Nero, proclaimed himself deity with many blasphemous names.)
Suetonius, in his Life of Caligula LII, writes of him:
In his clothing, his shoes, and the rest of his attire he did not follow the usage of his country and his fellow-citizens; not always even
that of his sex; or in fact, that of an ordinary mortal. He often appeared in public in embroidered cloaks covered with precious stones,
with a long-sleeved tunic and bracelets; sometimes in silk a and in a woman's robe; now in slippers or buskins; again in boots, such as
the emperor's body-guard wear, and at times in the low shoes which are used by females. But oftentimes he exhibited himself with a
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golden beard, holding in his hand a thunderbolt, a trident, or a caduceus, emblems of the gods, and even in the garb of Venus. He
frequently wore the dress of a triumphing general, even before his campaign, and sometimes the breastplate of Alexander the Great,
which he had taken from his sarcophagus.
Head #4: Tiberius “Claudius” Drusus Nero Germanicus (41 - 54): “He succeeded Caligula. Though in general he
treated the Jews, especially those in Asia and Egypt, with great indulgence, yet about the
middle of his reign (A.D. 49) he banished them all from Rome (Acts 18:2). In this edict the
Christians were included, as being, as was supposed, a sect of Jews. The Jews, however soon
again returned to Rome. During the reign of this emperor, several persecutions of the
Christians by the Jews took place in the dominions of Herod Agrippa, in one of which the
apostle James (Zebedee) was ‘killed’ (12:2).”[2] Claudius was poisoned by his wife, Valeria
Messalina, a woman notorious for her murders and adulteries, and perhaps the prophetic
model for the "Whore of Babylon."
Acts 11:28. And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there
would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius.
Acts 18:2. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, lately come from Italy with
his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to
see them;
Head #5: “Nero”: “He became emperor of Rome when he was about seventeen
years of age (A.D. 54), and soon began to exhibit the character of a cruel tyrant
and heathen debauchee. In May A.D. 64, a terrible conflagration broke out in
Rome, which raged for six days and seven nights, and totally destroyed a great
part of the city. The guilt of this fire was attached to him at the time, and the
general verdict of history accuses him of the crime.”
Hazon 17:16. And the ten horns that you saw (the Roman Legions), they and the
beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her
flesh and burn her up with fire…
‘Hence, to suppress the rumour,’ says Tacitus (Annals, xv. 44), ‘he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most
exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who are hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name,
was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition,
repressed for a time, broke out again, not only throughout Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also,
whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow, from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged.
Accordingly, first three were seized, who confessed they were Christians. Next, on their information, a vast multitude were
convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in their deaths they were also made the
subjects of sport; for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire
to, and, when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a
Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot;
whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers, though guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital
punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims to the ferocity of one man.’
“Another Roman historian, Suetonius (Nero, xvi.), says of him:
‘He likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who hold a new and impious superstition’ (Forbes's Footsteps
of St. Paul, p. 60). Nero was the emperor before whom Paul was brought on his first imprisonment at Rome, and the apostle is
supposed to have suffered martyrdom during this persecution. He is repeatedly alluded to in Scripture (Acts 25:11; Phil. 1:12, 13;
[3]
4:22).”
Hazon 13:7. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was
given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him,
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whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 9. If any
man have an ear, let him hear.
Nero, with the Praetorian Guard in hot pursuit, stabbed himself in the head and died.
Hazon 13:3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and
all the world wondered after the beast. More on this below. As to the wound being healed and all marveling,
this is explained in Part 2.
Head #6: Titus Flavius Sabinus “Vespasianus” (69 - 79) “founder of the Flavian dynasty who consolidated
Roman rule in Germany and Britain and reformed the army and brought prosperity to
the empire; began the construction of the Coliseum.” Vespasian was a military general
sent by Nero to quell the Jewish revolt (67 – 70).
Hazon 17:10. they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is …. Head #6 is
ruling when John has his vision. This dates the Hazon – not to the 90s, but to the 70s. This makes John not in
his 90s, which never made sense. Perhaps John is 60 – 70 years of age. My guess is that he was exiled by the
fiend Nero, who we’ll identify with the name of the beast below. More on this when we cover the Sea Best
below.
Head #7: “Titus” Flavius Vespasianus Augustus (79 - 81) (Hazon 17:10 - "to remain a little while") was one of
the sons of Vespasian and fought under his father in Israel. When Vespasian was called back to
Rome in the middle of the siege, Titus took his place and eventually conquered Jerusalem. Note
also that Titus’ mistress is a biblical figure – Bernice, the sister of King Herod Agrippa – Acts 25.
Bernice is another type for the Whore of Babylon, since she was one of the last descendants of
the Maccabees. Titus’ interpreter was Josephus, the historian. So we have the complete history
of the death of James the Just and the fall of Jerusalem from his hand.
Head #8? Titus Flavius “Domitianus” (81-96) “Emperor of Rome; son of Vespasian who succeeded
his brother Titus; instigated a reign of terror and was assassinated as a tyrant.
Hazon17:11. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it
goes to perdition.
The angel identifies Domitian as the prototype of the final Antichrist through an ancient
numerical trick. How takes a mind of wisdom.
Hazon 13:18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for
it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Everyone knows that the mark of the beast is 666, and this will be made clear in the next installment. But
Domitianus in and eight – an ancient number trick used to identify him that you can try today. Here’s how you
can prove your wisdom.
1. Add all the numbers from 1 to 8. (1 + 2 + 3 .. 8, etc.)
2. Add all the numbers in the sum you got in #1. (again, 1 + 2 + 3 .. ??).
3. What is an eighth equivalent to?
(See “Now Approaching: The Fourth Reich” by J. Snyder, 1998.)
Go to Part 2 – the Land Beast Go to Part 3 – The Mark of the Beast
I recommend the book Chronicle of the Roman Emperors, by Chris Scarre. This is a tremendous resource for Bible times with lots of
pictures and maps.
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