Revelation 13:1

His ten horns first become visible. The prophet has shifted the diadems from the heads to the horns (thereby altering their number, of necessity), since he wishes to stamp the heads (i.e., the Roman emperors, cf. Sib. Or. iii. 176; Tac. Ann. xv. 47) with the blasphemous names. Hence the ten horns (successive monarchs in the Danielic oracle) are superfluous here, except as an archaic, pictorial detail in the sketch of this polycephalous brute. Such grotesque, composite monsters were familiar figures in Persian and Babylonian mythology. The blasphemous title of divus, assumed by the emperors since Octavian (Augustus = σεβαστός) as a semi-sacred title, implied superhuman claims which shocked the pious feelings of Jews and Christians alike. So did θεός and θεοῦ υἱός which, as the inscriptions prove, were freely applied to the emperors, from Augustus onwards. The imperial system, especially with its demand for imperial worship, appeared the embodiment of irreverence and profane infatuation (Revelation 13:6). This calm usurpation of divine honours was inexplicable except on the supposition (Revelation 13:2) that the empire was a tool or agent of the devil himself. Much had happened since Paul wrote Romans 13:1-6, and even since Asiatic Christians had received the counsel of 1 Peter 2:13 f.