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Note that in Daniel 2:39, the original Chaldean/Aramaic word (ara, H0772) translated as "inferior" doesn't have to mean "land inferior", but can be used figuratively to simply mean "inferior", or "low", like how the ground is low (Strong's Hebrew and Chaldean Dictionary). Compare the feminine of H0772, which is H0773, which can be translated as "bottom" (Daniel 6:24c).
The Medo-Persian empire wasn't inferior to the Babylonian empire in territorial extent, just as the arms and chest of the image in Daniel 2:32 wouldn't have been inferior in size to its head, even though they were lower than the head. Instead, Daniel 2:39 can mean that the Medo-Persian empire was inferior in some way to the Babylonian empire in quality, just as the silver of the arms and chest were inferior in quality to the gold of the head.
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Daniel 2:31-33a,37-40 was fulfilled by the ancient empires of Babylon (head of gold: Daniel 2:38b), Medo-Persia (silver), Greece (brass), and Rome (iron), the same 4 empires pictured by the 4 beasts in Daniel 7.
The 2 arms of the silver empire in Daniel 2:32 represented the ancient Medes and the Persians, just as the 2 horns of the ram empire in Daniel 8:3 represented the ancient Medes and the Persians (Daniel 8:20).
The 2 iron legs in Daniel 2:33 could represent how the ancient Roman empire eventually split into 2 parts: Western and Eastern (i.e. Byzantine). The territory of the latter was eventually conquered by the (Islamic) Ottoman empire.
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God has no problem with repetition (e.g. Deuteronomy 9:4-6, Acts 11:10, Philippians 3:1b). And Daniel 7 adds information not in Daniel 2, even though it starts out by referring to the same 4 empires as Daniel 2.
Even though Daniel didn't see the vision in Daniel 7 until the time of Belshazzar king of Babylon (Daniel 7:1), who wasn't the 1st king of the ancient empire of Babylon, the 1st beast in Daniel 7 can still represent that empire. For in Daniel 7:17, the original Chaldean/Aramaic verb (quwm, H6966) translated as "shall arise", is in the imperfect aspect, which refers "to an action, process or condition which is incomplete" (blueletterbible.org). I.e., it doesn't have to refer to something entirely in the future, but can refer to something that has already begun. So the 1st beast/empire (Babylon) can have already existed at the time that Daniel saw the vision in Daniel 7.
In Daniel 7:7, while the original Chaldean/Aramaic word (qodam or qedam, H6925) translated as "before" is used in Daniel and Ezra in the sense of something being before something else in place, not in time, the word itself corresponds to a Hebrew word (qedem or qedmah, H6924) that can also refer to a time before (e.g. Job 29:2, Psalms 77:5, Nehemiah 12:46, Jeremiah 30:20).
So Daniel 7:7 can mean that at that point in the vision the first 3 beasts were before the 4th in place, and this signified that they would be before it in time. And they would be before it in their sequence. For Daniel says that he didn't see the 3rd beast in Daniel 7:6 until after he'd seen the 2nd beast in Daniel 7:5. And he didn't see the 4th beast in Daniel 7:7 until after he'd seen the 3rd beast in Daniel 7:6. Similarly, Daniel 7:23 can mean that the 4th beast would be the 4th empire that would be seen upon the earth in time. And it would come after the ancient Greek empire referred to in Daniel 7:6, for Daniel 7:6 and Daniel 8:21-22 refer to the same 4 Diadochian Greek kingdoms which succeeded Alexander the Great.
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"Beasts" can sometimes refer figuratively to persons (Titus 1:12). Revelation uses a Greek masculine-pronoun "him" to refer to its beast (Revelation 13:8) when it's referring to the individual "man" (Revelation 13:18) aspect of its beast, commonly called the Antichrist, the individual "man of sin" (2 Thessalonians 2:3) who will sit (at least one time) in a 3rd Jewish temple in Jerusalem and proclaim himself God (2 Thessalonians 2:4, Daniel 11:36). He will bring the world into the conscious and open worship of Lucifer (the dragon, Satan) and himself (Revelation 13:4,8, Revelation 12:9).
He will rule the earth for 3.5 literal years (Revelation 13:5-10, Daniel 7:25, Daniel 12:7), and will have a miracle-working False Prophet (Revelation 19:20, Revelation 16:13), who by amazing, Satanic miracles (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9), such as calling fire down from heaven (Revelation 13:13), will deceive the people of the world into worshipping a speaking (possibly an android) image of the Antichrist (Revelation 13:15), and receiving a mark of the Antichrist's name or gematrial name-number (666) on their right hand or forehead (Revelation 13:16-18). The Antichrist and his False Prophet will ultimately be cast into the lake of fire at Jesus' 2nd coming (Revelation 19:20), whereas at that time Satan will be bound in the bottomless pit for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-3).
A 2nd aspect of Revelation's beast is that it's a powerful fallen angel (referred to with a Greek masculine-pronoun "he" in Revelation 17:11) who's now literally in the bottomless pit and will ascend from it during the future tribulation to spiritually empower the empire of the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) (Revelation 17:8-11), empire being a 3rd aspect of the beast, represented by the animal symbols of Revelation 13:1-2. The fallen-angel aspect of the beast could be the angelic prince whom Satan had assigned to spiritually empower the ancient empire of Babylon, just as Satan had assigned other fallen angelic princes to spiritually empower the subsequent ancient empires of Persia and Greece (Daniel 10:13,20). When the ancient empire of Babylon was defeated, the fallen angelic prince empowering it could have been cast in the bottomless pit. This same fallen angel could be released to empower a revival of the empire of Babylon during the Antichrist's future, literal 3.5-year worldwide reign (of Revelation 13:5-18).
The release of the powerful fallen angelic prince of Babylon from the bottomless pit could occur at the same time as the unbinding of 4 other powerful fallen angels now bound at the Euphrates (Revelation 9:14b), who could have been bound there at the fall of the ancient empire of Babylon. When these 4 fallen angels are released at one point during the future tribulation, they will cause an army of 200 million weird horse-like beings to kill 1/3 of mankind (Revelation 9:15-19). This could be done in order to make mankind completely desperate before its takeover by Satan and the Antichrist mid-tribulation, when Satan and his fallen angels will be cast down from heaven to the earth permanently after losing a mid-tribulation war in heaven (Revelation 12:7 to 13:18).
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