Revelation thirteen describes how Satan will solicit help from the Roman Empire to destroy the woman and her child.
REVELATION 13:1–4
1 And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns
ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy.
2 And the beast, which I saw, was like to 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 own strength and great power.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death: and his death's wound was healed. And all
the earth was in admiration after the beast.
4 And they adored the dragon, which gave power to the beast: and they adored the beast, saying: Who
is like to the beast? and who shall be able to fight with him?
A great beast rises from the sea. This beast has seven heads and ten horns, and a crown rests on each horn. One head has a mortal wound, but the beast still lives. This sign is similar to the previous signs. It represents a collective entity too big to be seen by human eyes. This beast is the Roman Empire. Judeans would visualize it rising from the sea because Rome is across the Mediterranean from Judea. It looks like a leopard but has a mouth like a lion and feet like a bear. This shows how powerful Rome is. Most strange, the beast has seven heads and ten horns. The ten horns refer to vassal kings allied with Rome. The ten horns are described again in Rev. 17:9–13 under the first sight. The beast just received the dragon' s strength and great power. The beast has seven heads to show the seven divine heads that ruled the Roman Empire starting when it, with its heads, dared to presume that it was divine. The first five of the seven divine Caesars were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Nero is the head with the mortal wound.
I earlier mentioned the divine Caesars when I discussed Gaius Caligula. Gaius Caligula seriously abused the power and authority given him as Caesar. Thinking he really was a god, he tried to depose the Most High God from the Judean Temple and impose Caesar worship there. He met disaster, but it was a personal disaster. A man he insulted murdered him. His death did not end the dynasty of Julius Caesar. His uncle, a distant nephew of Julius Caesar, succeeded him.
Nero was the next member of Caesar's dynasty to seriously abuse his power and authority. He made so many enemies in Rome that finally the Roman Senate conspired to kill him. He committed suicide. This time the Empire almost died when the head died. I now cite historical events to show how Nero fits this vision as the head with the mortal wound. First I will show how his blatant immorality and cruelty shocked even the pagan Romans:
Although at first his acts of wantonness, lust, extravagance, avarice and cruelty were gradual and secret, and might be condoned as follies of youth, yet even then their nature were such that no one doubted that they were defects of his character and not due to his time of life. No sooner was twilight over than he would catch up a cap or a wig and go to the taverns or range about the streets playing pranks, which however were very far from harmless; for he used to beat men as they came home from dinner, stabbing any who resisted him and throwing them into the sewers. He would even break into the shops and rob them, setting up a market in the Palace, where he divided the booty which he took, sold it at an auction and then squandered the proceeds. In the strife which resulted he often ran the risk of losing his eyes or even his life, for he was beaten almost to death by a man of the senatorial order whose wife he had maltreated. Warned by this he never afterwards ventured to appear in public at that hour without having his tribunes follow him at a distance and unobserved. Even in the daytime he would be carried privately to the theater in a sedan, and from the upper part of the proscenium would watch the brawls of the pantomimic actors and egg them on, and when they came to blows and fought with stones and broken benches he himself threw many missiles at the people and even broke a praetor's head. Little by little, however, as his vices grew stronger, he dropped jesting and secrecy and with no attempt at disguise openly broke out into worse crime (Suetonius, II, pp. 129–31[Nero, 26–7]).
Nero murdered many innocent people who got in his way. Within his own family he poisoned his stepbrother Britannicus. He thought Britannicus, the natural son of Claudius and, therefore, the true heir, would be a rival to the throne. He ordered the murder of his mother when she became meddlesome. He ordered a physician to overdose his aunt's medication to kill her. He had his first wife, Octavia, executed. He kicked to death his second wife, Poppaea, who was pregnant with his child. He even had people murdered on a whim. This shows how easily Nero complied with satanic temptation, even to harm his own family. There was no check against his immorality. His subjects were afraid to admonish him. Many flattered him, telling him he was doing right. For example, here is how flatterers consoled Nero after he had his mother murdered:
But the emperor, when the crime was at last accomplished, realized its portentous guilt. The rest of the night, now silent and stupified, now and still oftener starting up in terror, bereft of reason, he awaited the dawn as if it would bring with it his doom. He was first encouraged to hope by the flattery addressed to him, at the prompting of Burrus, by the centurions and tribunes, who again and again pressed his hand and congratulated him on his having escaped an unforeseen danger and his mother's daring crime. Then his friends went to the temples, and, an example having once been set, the neighboring towns of Campania testified their joy with sacrifices and deputations (Tacitus, The Annals, p. 326 [14:10]).
This fifth head of the "divine" Empire meddled in God's relationship with the chosen people. Nero was asked whether Caesarea should be a pagan city or a Judean city. One can imagine how the dragon would influence Nero's decision. Nero said it should be pagan. His willingness to make a Judean city pagan interfered with the city's obligation to serve only the one God. The Judeans, faced with this injustice, took to the streets. The Pagans fought back.
Nero showed little concern for Judaism. He ignored prior concessions granted to Judaism by previous Caesars who respected the God the Judeans worshiped. These concessions amounted to religious liberty for the Judeans. Nero's reneging on Rome's commitments fanned resentment, frustration, and hatred. It helped push the Judeans to revolt. When they revolted, Nero authorized maximum force to gain control. Although it was unbelieving Judeans who revolted, Rome fought all Judeans. So Nero's openness to temptation brought the Empire to fight both the woman and the child.
Nero admired large and beautiful buildings. He wanted to rebuild Rome, but he could not do it as long as the old structures remained. Someone's chance remark gave him the opportunity he was looking for: When someone in a general conversation said: 'When I am dead, be earth consumed by fire,' he rejoined 'Nay, rather while I live.' and his action was wholly in accord. For under cover of displeasure at the ugliness of the old buildings and the narrow, crooked streets, he set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and firebrands, while some granaries near the Golden House, whose room he particularly desired, were demolished by engines of war and then set on fire, because their walls were of stone. For six days and seven nights the destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to monuments and tombs. At that time, besides an immense number of dwellings, the private houses of leaders of old were burned, still adorned with trophies of victory, and the temples of the gods vowed and dedicated by the kings and later in the Punic and Gallic wars, and whatever else interesting and noteworthy had survived from antiquity. Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas and exulting, as he said in 'the beauty of the flames,' he sang the whole of the 'Sack of Ilium [Troy],' dressed up in his regular stage costume. Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible, while promising the removal of the debris and dead bodies free of cost he allowed no one to approach the ruins of his own property; and from the contributions which he not only received, but even demanded, he nearly bankrupted the provinces and exhausted the resources of individuals (Suetonius, II, pp. 155–7 [Nero, 38]).
When he realized that the people suspected him, he blamed the fire on the Christians. He withdrew protection of Christians so the Romans could vent their fury on them. The fire destroyed ten of Rome's fourteen sectors. Outraged victims beat Christians and dragged them through the streets. Some they threw into the Tiber River. Seeing that the Romans did blame the Christians, Nero declared the Christians public enemies and authorized their execution. This is the first Roman persecution of Christians:
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiation of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace (Tacitus, The Annals, p. 380 [15:44]).
In front of angry Romans, gladiators strangled Christians or stabbed them. Wild animals, half starved, stalked Christians across the arena and ate them amid the roar of cheering Romans. Crucified Christians died a slow and pitiless death. Others, covered with flaming tar, served as lights for night games. Old men, young women, even boys and girls were slaughtered.
At the same time, Nero sent Vespasian to crush the Judean revolt as I described earlier under the first and second woes. So Nero is fighting the woman and all her children. Gradually Nero's cruelty and murders alienated the Roman Senators. Finally they decided to depose him. First they conspired with the nobility to assassinate Nero and replace him with the nobleman Piso. Nero got wind of it. He launched a murderous purge that killed Piso and many others.
Resentment over his ruthless reprisal led to an army revolt in Gaul. Nero assumed dictatorial power. He threatened a second purge against the conspirators in Gaul. More army revolts broke out in Spain and Africa. Then, frightened for his life, Nero went into hiding. He still tried to control the government by sending messengers to the Senate. Seeing their clandestine plots fail, the Roman Senate took formal action. They declared Nero a public enemy and sentenced him to death. When troops loyal to the Senate found Nero and were ready to seize him, he committed suicide:
While he hesitated, a letter was brought to Phaon by one of his couriers. Nero snatching it from his hand read that he had been pronounced a public enemy by the senate, and that they were seeking to punish him in the ancient fashion; and he asked what manner of punishment that was. When he learned that the criminal was stripped, fastened by the neck in a fork and then beaten to death with rods, in mortal terror he seized two daggers which he had brought with him, and then, after trying the point of each, put them up again, pleading that the fated hour had not yet come. Now he would beg Sporus to begin to lament and wail, and now entreat someone to help him take his life by setting him the example; anon he reproached himself for his cowardice in such words as these: 'To live is a scandal and a shame—this does not become Nero, does not become him—one must be resolute at such times—come, rouse thyself!' And now the horsemen were at hand who had orders to take him off alive. When he heard them he quavered: 'Hark, now strikes on my ear the trampling of swift footed coursers!', and drove a dagger into his throat, aided by Epaphroditus his private secretary. He was all but dead when a Centurion rushed in, and as he placed a cloak to the wound, pretending that he had come to aid him, Nero merely gasped: 'Too late!' and 'This is fidelity!' With these words he was gone, his eyes so set and starting from his sockets that all who saw him shuddered with horror (Suetonius, II, pp. 177–9 [Nero, 49]).
This "wounded head's" death in A.D. 68 ended the dynasty started by Julius Caesar. The Romans had a premonition this would happen: The race of the Caesars ended with Nero. That this would be so was shown by many portents and especially by two very significant ones. Years before, as Livia was returning to her estate near Veii, immediately after her marriage to Augustus, an eagle which flew by dropped into her lap a white hen, holding in its beak a sprig of laurel, just as the eagle had carried it off. Livia resolved to rear the fowl and plant the sprig, whereupon such a great brood of chickens was hatched that to this day the villa is called 'Ad Gallinas' [The Hen Roost], and such a grove of laurel sprang up, that the Caesars gathered their laurels from it when they were going to celebrate triumphs. Moreover it was the habit of those who triumphed to plant other branches at once in the same place, and it was observed that just before the death of each of them the tree which he had planted withered. Now in Nero's last year the whole grove died from the root up, as well as all the hens. Furthermore, when shortly afterwards the temple of the Caesars was struck by lightning, the heads fell from all the statues at the same time, and his scepter too was dashed from the hand of Augustus (Suetonius, II, p 191 [Galba, 1]).
The Roman senate intended to appoint a new emperor from a different family but lost control of government when other families revolted. Within ten months, there were three military coups under Galba, then Otho, then Vitellius. The mortally wounded empire was in danger of falling apart as did the Greek empire when Alexander the Great died. Rome then found a savior in Vespasian, a well-respected general. He was then still battling the Judeans. Patriots in Rome and elsewhere asked Vespasian to head a fourth (and final) coup and save the Empire. The Romans also had a premonition that there would come from Judea men destined to rule the world. The Judeans, of course, prophesied the Messiah, but the pagan Romans misunderstood. The Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus both mention it, and both took it to mean that Vespasian and his sons were the men:
There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judea to rule the world. This prediction, referring to the emperor of Rome, as afterwards appeared from the event, the people from Judea took to themselves; accordingly, they revolted, and, after killing their governor, they routed the consular ruler of Syria as well, when he came to the rescue, and took one of his eagles. Since to put down this rebellion required a considerable army with a leader of no little enterprise, yet one to whom so great power could be entrusted without risk, Vespasian was chosen for the task, both as a man of tried energy and as one in no wise to be feared because of the obscurity of his family and name (Suetonius, II, p. 289 [Vaspasian, 4]).
Prodigies had occurred, which this nation [Judea], prone to superstition, but hating all religious rites, did not deem it lawful to expiate by offering and sacrifice. . . . Some few put a fearful meaning on these events, but in most there was a firm persuasion, that in the ancient records of their priests was contained a prediction of how at this very time the East was to grow powerful, and rulers, coming from Judea, were to acquire universal empire. These mysterious prophecies had pointed to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, with the usual blindness of ambition, had interpreted these mighty destinies of themselves, and could not be brought even by disasters to believe the truth (Tacitus, The Histories, p. 665 [V, 13]).
If the prophecies of the Messiah were now applied to Vespasian, the new head of the wounded beast, is it any wonder that the earth admired the beast and said: "Who is like to the beast?" and "Who shall be able to fight with him?" Vespasian's family formed a new dynasty. He is the sixth head. His son, Titus, is the seventh head. This dynasty retained the title "Caesar" and encouraged the Romans to continue worshiping the current Caesar as they had been doing. Titus reigned as "Caesar" when the Judeans first heard this portion of Revelation. Rev. 17 also describes a second vision of the sea beast, this time providing more detail about the seven heads.
And the beast which was, and is not: the same also is the eight, and is of the seven, and goeth into destruction (Rev. 17:11).
Verse 17:11 reveals that there will be an eighth head that is one of the first seven and is also the beast. This eighth head will be Vespasian's youngest son, Domitian, who will succeed Titus. He, more so than Titus or Vespasian, will abuse the Empire's claim to divinity. He, just like Nero before him, will enforce Caesar worship. But I am getting ahead of myself. When the early Church and Judea first heard this prophecy, Domitian was not yet emperor.
REVELATION 13:5–10
5 And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies: and power was given to him to do two and forty months.
6 And he opened his mouth unto blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. And power was given him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that shall lead into captivity, shall go into captivity: he that shall kill by the sword, must be killed by the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Remember when the dragon ran to the shore? The dragon was looking for help in a new fight against the woman and her child. When the dragon arrived at the shore, this vision of the Roman Empire emerged from the sea.