given that many historians critics and many jewish and christian scholars believe that the book of daniel is about the events in israel from the beginning of the babylonian captivity to the end of the maccabean revolt they would say that the old testament reference is to antiochus iv epiphanes the man who attacked the temple in jerusalem and defiled it by sacrificing a pig on the altar erecting a statue of zeus as himself in the temple raiding the temple treasury and minting coins saying theos epiphanes god manifest etc