1. THE BIRTH OF AKHNATON.
It has been seen that Queen Tiy presented several children to the king; but it was not until they had reigned some twenty-five or twenty-six years that the future monarch was born. As the years had passed the queen must have grown more and more anxious for a son, and many must have been the prayers she offered up that a male child might be vouchsafed to her. In Egypt at the present day the desire to bear a son holds dominion in the heart of every young woman; and those to whom this privilege has not been granted forsake the laws of the prophet and still lay their passionate appeal before the old gods. The present writer was asked recently by a young peasant to allow his wife to walk round the outer wall of an ancient temple, in order that she might perchance bear a male child thereafter; and on another occasion three young women were seen sliding down the plinth of an overturned statue of Rameses the Great for the same purpose. With similar emotion, though with greater intelligence, Queen Tiy must have turned in her grief from one god to another, promising them all manner of gifts if they would grant her desire. To Ra-Horakhti Aton she appears to have turned with the most confidence; and perhaps, as will presently be seen, she vowed that if a son were granted to her she would dedicate him to the service of that god.
It is probable that the little prince first saw the light in the royal palace at Thebes, which was situated on the edge of the desert at the foot of the western hills. It was, as has been said, an extensive building, lightly constructed and gaily decorated. The ceilings and pavements of its halls were fantastically painted with scenes of animal life: wild cattle ran through reedy swamps beneath the royal feet, and there many-coloured fish swam in the water; while overhead flights of pigeons, white against a blue sky, passed across the hall, and wild duck hastened towards the open casements. Through curtained doorways one might obtain glimpses of the garden planted with flowers foreign to Egypt; and on the east of the palace shone the great pleasure-lake, surrounded by the trees of Asia.
In all the world there are few places more beautiful than the site of this palace. Here one may sit for many an hour watching the changing colours on the wonderful cliffs, the pink and the yellow of the rocks standing out from the blue and the purple of the deep shadows. In the fields which now surround the ruined palace, where the royal gardens were laid out, one obtains an impression of colour, of beauty, and of gaiety—if it can be so expressed—which is not easily equalled. The continuous sunshine and the bracing wind render one intensely awake to natural joys; and here, indeed, was a fitting birthplace, one feels, for a king who taught his people to study the beauties of nature.
2. THE RISE OF ATON.
The little prince was named Amonhotep,[14] “the Peace-of-Amon,” after his father; but though the supremacy of Amon was thus acknowledged, the Heliopolitan deity appears to have been considered as the protector of the young boy. While the luxurious court rejoiced at the birth of their future king, one feels that the ancient priesthood of Amon-Ra must have looked askance at the baby who was destined one day to be their master. This priesthood still demanded implicit obedience to its stiff and ancient conventions, and it refused to recognise the growing tendency towards religious speculation.
Probably stronger measures would have been taken by it to resist the growing power of Ra-Horakhti, had it not been for the fact that Ra was also a form of Amon, and had been identified with him under the name of Amon-Ra. The god Amon was originally but the local deity of Thebes; and, when the Theban Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty had elevated him to the position of the state god of all Egypt, they made him acceptable to the various provinces, as we have seen, by pointing to his identification with Ra, the sun-god, who, under one form or another, found a place in every temple and held high rank in every variety of mythology. As Amon-Ra he was able to be appreciated by the sun-worshippers of Syria and by those of Nubia, for there were few races who would not do homage to the great giver of warmth and light.
It is possible that those more thoughtful members of the court who were quietly attempting to undermine the influence of the priesthood of Amon, and who were beginning to carry into execution the schemes of emancipation which we have already noticed, now endeavoured to strip Amon of his association with the sun; for that identity was really his simple claim to acceptance by any but Thebans. The priesthood, on their part, it may be supposed, drew as much attention as possible to the connection of their deity with Ra; for they knew that none but the Heliopolitan god could be advanced with success as a rival of Amon by those who desired to overthrow the Theban god. Thus one finds that the High Priest of Ra at Heliopolis was given, and was obliged to accept, the honorary office of Second Priest of Amon at Thebes,[15] which at once placed him under the thumb of the Theban High Priest. The propounders of the new thought, however, met this move by bringing into greater prominence the claims, not of Ra-Horakhti, but of Aton, which was merely a more elusive form of the sun-god. The priesthood of Amon had always checked the individual growth of Ra-Horakhti by regarding him simply as an aspect of Ra, and hence of Amon-Ra. One of the essential features of the new movement was the regarding of Ra as an aspect of Ra-Horakhti, and the calling of Ra-Horakhti by the uncontaminated name of Aton. Aton, in fact, was originally introduced into the matter largely for the purpose of preventing any identification between Amon-Ra and Ra-Horakhti. Soon the name of Aton, entirely supplanting that of Atum, was heard with some frequency at Thebes and elsewhere, but always, it must be remembered, as another word for Ra-Horakhti.