That's why you have to go by what scripture says, and the whole Bible so you get the full picture, and I gave texts for it. But if you need more we can search the scriptures together..
But I know that you disregard the scriptures because the texts that you have used to justify your understanding by the way you have interpretated those scriptures does not jell with me at all. Yes, we can see people groups, nations kingdoms and empires manifesting the respective four beasts dominate characteristics, but the five beasts are wicked heavenly hosts whose influences ebb and flow through different people groups, kingdoms, nations and empires since the time of Daniel up to this present time, but the number of people groups, nations, kingdoms and empires has not been limited to just four distinct people groups, nations, kingdoms and empires as your rhetoric suggests.
The rhetoric of the reformation fathers was to discredit the RCC and the Papacy and they wrongly linked Daniel 2 with Daniel 7 where their understanding that the land of Babylon would be devastated and desolated for a period of two ages and was only remembered once more historically in 1926 when the French and British Governments divided the Otterman Empire up between them and established a number of Nations that had dominion over a number of discrete land areas with one of those land area borders also included the land area of Babylon and the nation formed and given dominion over the land of Babylon was Iraq.
Now Hobie, you claim that what you present can be historically proved from history but the linkages to the Roman Empire having dominion over the Land of Babylon never happened at all. The Land of Babylon was devasted and desolated by the northern division oof the divided Greek Empire around the year 120 BC, 60 years before the Roman Empire had established themselves as the dominate Empire in the known world at that time in the middle east.
For me the five segments of the Statue Prophecy in Daniel 2 is, Babylon, the Medes and the Persian followed by the Greek empire. Then there was a period of just over 2,000 years where the land of Babylon lay devasted and desolate before Iraq was declared to have dominion over the Land of Babylon during the division of the spoils of the Otterman Empires between the British and French Nations.
Now if you cannot see in the Historical record that was prophetically foretold in the scriptures in Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremaih concerning the Land of Babylon, then there is no point in you and me searching scriptures together because you would hold to your traditional understanding not wanting to accept what I have been able to determine for myself over the past 20 to 30 years of Biblical study. I once held to the tradition of the Roman Empire and the revived Roman Empire being the fourth and fifth segment of the statue in Daniel 2, but keys were revealed to me that had not been understood previously when I did a particular Hebrew Word study that showed to me that the scholars had not understood what the context of the Hebrew Text with respect to this one particular Hebrew Root word can be found embedded 167 times in Hebrew word variations with the same contextual understanding.
But this is probably going over your head as far as your understanding is concerned and as such it would be pointless for us to study the scriptures together to come to an agreed understanding.
Goodbye