Writing in from Normanton....
jwfacts....The fourth beast is usually thought by biblical scholars to represent Greece, and the other beasts representing Babylon, Media (which is represented in Daniel as the kingdom following Babylon via "Darius the Mede", who is succeeded by "Cyrus the Persian"), and Persia. In fact, the earliest interpretation of ch. 7 found in the third book of the Sybilline Oracles (dating to the second century BC) regards the kingdom with the ten horns as Greece, and the "little horn" (duplicated in the midrash vision of ch. 8) was acknowledged by Josephus to be Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the central character of ch. 11. I've had a post from a while back that shows the parallelisms between the various chapters.
Bammer has a good point about ch. 11, and there is much else in the book that points in the direction of it being a later pseudepigraphon. Has anyone noticed that unlike all the other "prophets", the "prophet" Daniel does not actually deliver any prophecy in the book...never does he declare the "word of Yahweh"; instead he interprets dreams and visions (much like Joseph in the OT) or has an interpreting angel give the interpretation (just as it is in 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, and other late apocalypses). In fact, in the Hebrew canon, Daniel is not classed among the Prophets but among the Writings, presumably because the canon of the Prophets had already closed by the time Daniel was written. And so the literary form of the apocalypse is such that current oracles are cast in a form of apocalyptic writing ostensibly dating back to the sixth century BC, but sealed up and hidden until the "time of the end," which was the time when the book was published, at which time it was unsealed. Notice that it is not the interpretation of the book that was unsealed (as modern Adventist interpreters regard it), but the book itself. This was a common literary device in pseudepigraphic writings, found in the Testament of Moses and in 1 Enoch. In the case of Revelation, it was supposed to be disseminated right away, and thus the author demands that it NOT be sealed -- the exact opposite of Daniel. This reflects the fact that Revelation is not pseudynomous and not attributed to an ancient worthy whose message is only unsealed during the present crisis.