The dragon, a beast from the natural world, would properly symbolize a tyrannical, persecuting government.  This was a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.  In the following chapter we read that John saw a beast rising up out of the sea with the same number of heads and horns, but ten crowns on his horns.  And the dragon gave him (the beast) “his power, and his seat, and great authority.”  Verse 2.  So far as the heads and horns are concerned, the only difference between the two is that the crowns—­a symbol of supreme authority and power—­have been transferred from the heads to the horns.  In chapter 17 John saw the same beast again and there received the following explanation of the seven heads:  “And there are seven kings:  five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space.”  Verse 10.  Concerning the horns he was told, “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet.”  Verse 12.  With this explanation before us it will be easy to identify the dragon of chapter 12 and the beast of chapters 13 and 17 as the Roman empire, the first under the Pagan and the second under the Papal form.  The seven heads signify the seven distinct forms of supreme government that ruled successively in the empire.  The five that had already fallen when John received the vision were the Regal power, the Consular, the Decemvirate, the Military Tribunes and the Triumvirate.  “One is”—­the Imperial.[8] The identification of its seventh and last head we shall leave until later.  The ten horns, or kingdoms, which had not yet arisen when the Revelation was given, were the ten minor kingdoms that grew out of the Western Roman empire during its decline and fall.  The historian Machiard, in giving an account of these nations, and without any reference to the Bible or its prophecies, reckons ten kingdoms, as follows: 

1.  The Ostrogoths in Maesia; 2.  The Visigoths in Pannonia; 3.  Sueves and Alans in Gascoigne and Spain; 4.  Vandals in Africa; 5.  Franks in France; 6.  Burgundians in Burgundy; 7.  Heruli and Turings in Italy; 8.  Saxons and Anglis in Britain; 9.  Huns in Hungary; 10.  Lombards, at first on the Danube, and afterwards in Italy.

[Footnote 8:  The fact that commentators and historians differ in their enumeration of the forms of government that ruled in Rome is often a source of confusion to ordinary readers.  Hence an explanation is necessary.  Rome was first ruled by kings, and therefore the first form of government is designated by either the term Kings or the term Regal Power.  Upon the expulsion of the kings and the formation of the republic, the royal power was entrusted to two men who held it for a year, and were called consuls.  In times of great public danger the consuls were superseded by a special officer called a dictator, who had supreme power.  As the early life of the republic was often threatened