Daniel 2:40

Rome defeated the last vestige of the Greek Empire in 31 B.C. and ruled for hundreds of years-until A.D. 476 in the Western Roman Empire, and until A.D. 1453 in the Eastern Roman Empire. The eastern and western divisions of this empire crushed all opposition with a brutal strength that surpassed any of its predecessors. Certainly iron legs fitly symbolized the Roman Empire. Rome also dominated the map more extensively than any previous kingdom, encompassing almost all of Europe, including Spain and the British Isles, as well as India. Those legs stood astride most of the ancient world.

"The Roman Empire embraced a much wider territory in which the Western division became fully as strong as the Eastern, and this seems to be portrayed by the two legs." [Note: Walvoord, p. 73.]

However, in terms of absolute authority, Rome was indeed an inferior power. The people and the senate played major roles in setting its policies, and they controlled the emperors more than had been true in the preceding empires in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Nebuchadnezzar was an absolute monarch, and those rulers who followed him (the Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman sovereigns) were increasingly less powerful personally.