This emperor was definitely not a nice guy. He was intent on consolidating the empire that had been won by Alexander and that meant stamping out the rebellions of groups like the Maccabees. In the earlier chapters of Daniel, it is the King who has the dreams and we can understand those dreams as part of the story of Daniel. Chapter 7 is different. It is a transitional chapter to the dreams and visions of Daniel and dreams are different than stories.
Dreams deserve a much different kind of response than a mere historical contextualizing.
After all, dreams arise from the subconscious, from that part of the brain that is not analytic or pragmatic. These dreams speak of unsatisfied hopes, of abiding frustrations and disappointments. Daniel s dream speaks of a world gone wrong, of powers and principalities that can t be defeated by mere warfare. Daniel s apocalyptic dream begins in chaos, of the great Mediterranean Sea stirred up by the four winds of heaven. Just as in the Genesis creation story, where God is the creator of the great sea monster Tiamat, so now God stirs the sea and releases not one, but four, monsters.