The glory of the Pharaohs

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

It is thought that Horemheb may be identified amongst the nobles who followed Akhnaton to El Amarna, and though this is not certain, there is little doubt that he was in high favour with the King at the time. To one whose tendency is neither towards frivolity nor towards fanaticism, there can be nothing more broadening than the influence of religious changes. More than one point of view is appreciated: a man learns that there are other ruts than that in which he runs, and so he seeks the smooth midway. Thus Horemheb, while acting loyally towards his King, and while appreciating the value of the new movement, did not exclude from his thoughts those teachings which he deemed good in the old order of things. He seems to have seen life broadly; and when the new religion of Akhnaton became narrowed and fanatical, as it did towards the close of the tragic chapter of that king’s short life, Horemheb was one of the few men who kept an open mind.

Like many other nobles of the period, he had constructed for himself a tomb at Sakkâra, in the shadow of the pyramids of the old kings of Egypt; and fragments of this tomb, which of course was abandoned when he became Pharaoh, are now to be seen in various museums. In one of the scenes there sculptured Horemheb is shown in the presence of a king who is almost certainly Akhnaton; and yet in a speech to him inscribed above the reliefs, Horemheb makes reference to the god Amon whose very name was anathema to the King. The royal figure is drawn according to the canons of art prescribed by Akhnaton, and upon which, as a protest against the conventional art of the old order, he laid the greatest stress in his revolution; and thus, at all events, Horemheb was in sympathy with this aspect of the movement. But the inscriptions which refer to Amon, and yet are impregnated with the Aton style of expression, show that Horemheb was not to be held down to any one mode of thought. Akhnaton was, perhaps, already dead when these inscriptions were added, and thus Horemheb may have had no further reason to hide his views; or it may be that they constituted a protest against the narrowness which marred the last years of the idealist.

Those who read the history of the period in the last chapter will remember how Akhnaton came to persecute the worshippers of Amon, and how he erased that god’s name wherever it was written throughout the length and breadth of Egypt. Evidently with this action Horemheb did not agree; nor was this his only cause for complaint. As an officer, and now a highly placed general, of the army, he must have seen with feelings of the utmost bitterness the neglected condition of the Syrian provinces. Revolt after revolt occurred in these states; but Akhnaton, dreaming and praying in the sunshine of El Amarna, would send no expedition to punish the rebels. Good-fellowship with all men was the King’s watchword, and a policy more or less democratic did not permit him to make war on his fellow-creatures. Horemheb could smell battle in the distance, but could not taste of it. The battalions which he had trained were kept useless in Egypt; and even when, during the last years of Akhnaton’s reign, or under his immediate successor, he was made commander-in-chief of all the forces, there was no means of using his power to check the loss of the cities of Asia. Horemheb must have watched these cities fall one by one into the hands of those who preached the doctrine of the sword, and there can be little wonder that he turned in disgust from the doings at El Amarna.

During the times which followed, when Smenkhkara held the throne for a year or so, and afterwards, when Tutankhamon became Pharaoh, Horemheb seems to have been the leader of the reactionary movement. He did not concern himself so much with the religious aspect of the questions: there was as much to be said on behalf of Aton as there was on behalf of Amon. But it was he who knocked at the doors of the heart of Egypt, and urged the nation to awake to the danger in the East. An expedition against the rebels was organised, and one reads that Horemheb was the “companion of his Lord upon the battlefield on the day of the slaying of the Asiatics.” Akhnaton had been opposed to warfare, and had dreamed that dream of universal peace which still is a far-off light to mankind. Horemheb was a practical man in whom such a dream would have seemed but weakness; and, though one knows nothing more of these early campaigns, the fact that he attempted to chastise the enemies of the empire at this juncture stands to his account for all time.

Under Tutankhamon the court returned to Thebes, though not yet exclusively to the worship of Amon; and the political phase of the revolution came to an end. The country once more settled into the old order of life, and Horemheb, having experienced the full dangers of philosophic speculation, was glad enough to abandon thought for action. He was now the most powerful man in the kingdom, and inscriptions call him “the greatest of the great, the mightiest of the mighty, presider over the Two Lands of Egypt, general of generals,” and so on. The King “appointed him to be Chief of the Land, to administer the laws of the land as Hereditary Prince of all this land”; and “all that was done was done by his command.” From chaos Horemheb was producing order, and all men turned to him in gratitude as he reorganised the various government departments.

The offices which he held, such as Privy Councillor, King’s Secretary, Great Lord of the People, and so on, are very numerous; and in all of these he dealt justly though sternly, so that “when he came the fear of him was great in the sight of the people, prosperity and health were craved for him, and he was greeted as ‘Father of the Two Lands of Egypt.’” He was indeed the saviour and father of his country, for he had found her corrupt and disordered, and he was leading her back to greatness and dignity.

At this time he was probably a man of about forty years of age. In appearance he seems to have been noble and good to look upon. “When he was born,” says the inscription, “he was clothed with strength: the hue of a god was upon him”; and in later life, “the form of a god was in his colour,” whatever that may mean. He was a man of considerable eloquence and great learning. “He astonished the people by that which came out of his mouth,” we are told; and “when he was summoned before the King the palace began to fear.” One may picture the weak Pharaoh and his corrupt court, as they watched with apprehension the movements of this stern soldier, of whom it was said that his every thought was “in the footsteps of the Ibis,”—the ibis being the god of wisdom.

On the death of Tutankhamon, the question of inviting Horemheb to fill the vacant throne must have been seriously considered. A Hittite document recently discovered shows the late King’s widow, Akhnaton’s daughter, seeking an alliance with a Hittite prince, and promising to make him King of Egypt; but there was another candidate, a certain Ay, who had been one of the most important nobles in the group of Akhnaton’s favourites at El Amarna, and who was the father of the beautiful Nefertiti, Akhnaton’s queen. Religious feeling was at the time running high, for the partizans of Amon and those of Aton seem to have been waging war on one another; and Ay appears to have been regarded as the man most likely to bridge the gulf between the two parties. A favourite of Akhnaton, and once a devout worshipper of Aton, he was not averse to the cults of other gods; and by conciliating both factions he managed to obtain the throne for himself. His power, however, did not last for long; and as the priests of Amon regained the confidence of the nation at the expense of those of Aton, so the power of Ay declined. His past connections with Akhnaton told against him, and in five years or so he disappeared, leaving the throne vacant once more. We hear no more of Tutankhamen’s widow or of her Hittite alliance.

There was now no question as to who should succeed. A princess named Mutnezem, the sister of Akhnaton’s queen, and daughter of King Ay, was the heiress to the throne. All men turned to Horemheb in the hope that he would marry this lady, and thus reign as Pharaoh over them. He was now some forty-five years of age, full of energy and vigour, and passionately anxious to have a free hand in the carrying out of his schemes for the reorganisation of the government. It was therefore with joy that, in about the year 1345 B.C., he sailed up to Thebes in order to claim the crown.

He arrived at Luxor at a time when the annual festival of Amon was being celebrated, and all the city was en fête. The statue of the god had been taken from its shrine at Karnak, and had been towed up the river to Luxor in a gorgeous barge, attended by a fleet of gaily-decorated vessels. With songs and dancing it had been conveyed into the Luxor temple, where the priests have received it standing amidst piled-up masses of flowers, fruit, and other offerings. It seems to have been at this moment that Horemheb appeared, while the clouds of incense streamed up to heaven, and the morning air was full of the sound of the harps and the lutes. Surrounded by a crowd of his admirers, he was conveyed into the presence of the divine figure, and was there and then hailed as Pharaoh.