Meanwhile Aziru had paid a rapid visit to Egypt, partly to justify his conduct and partly, no doubt, to ascertain the condition of affairs on the Nile. With Oriental cunning he managed to satisfy Akhnaton that his intentions were not hostile to Egypt, and so returned to the Lebanon. Ribaddi, hearing of this, at once sent his son to the City of the Horizon to expose Aziru’s perfidy and to plead for assistance against him. At the same time he wrote to Akhnaton a pathetic account of his misfortunes. Four members of his family had been taken prisoners; his brother was constantly conspiring against him; old age and disease pressed heavily upon him. All his possessions had been taken from him, all his lands devastated; he had been reduced by famine and the privations of a long siege to a state of utter destitution, and he could not much longer hold out. “The gods of Byblos,” he writes, “are angry with me and sore displeased; for I have sinned against the gods, and therefore I do not come before my lord the King.” Was his sin, one wonders, the adoption for a while of Akhnaton’s faith? To this communication Akhnaton seems to have made no reply.
6. AKHNATON CONTINUES TO REFUSE TO SEND HELP.
The messengers who arrived at the City of the Horizon of Aton, dusty and travel-stained, to deliver the many letters asking for help, must have despaired indeed when they observed the manner in which the news was received. Hateful to these hardy soldiers of the empire were the fine quays at which their galleys moored; hateful the fair villas and shaded avenues of the city; and thrice hateful the rolling hymns to the Aton which came to them from the temple halls as they hurried to the Pharaoh’s palace. The townspeople smiled at their haste in this city of dreams; the court officials delayed the delivery of their letters, scoffing at the idea of urgency in the affairs of Asia; and finally these wretched documents, written—if ever letters were so written—with blood and with tears, were pigeon-holed in the city archives and utterly forgotten save by Akhnaton himself. Instead of the brave music of the drums and bugles of the relieving army which these messengers had hoped to muster, there rang in their maddened ears only the ceaseless chants of the priestly ceremonies and the pattering love-songs of private festivals. Newly come from the sweat and the labour of the road, their brains still racked with the horror of war and yet burning with the vast hopes of empire, they looked with scorn at the luxury of Egypt’s new capital, and heard with disgust the dainty tales of the flowers. The lean, sad-eyed Pharaoh, with his crooked head and his stooping shoulders, would speak only of his God; and, clad in simple clothes unrelieved by a single jewel, there was nothing martial in his appearance to give them hope. From the beleaguered cities which they had so lately left there came to them the bitter cry for succour; and it was not possible to drown that cry in words of peace, nor in the jangle of the systrum or the warbling of the pipes. Who, thought the waiting messengers, could resist that piteous call: “Thy city weeps, and her tears are flowing”? Who could sit idle in the City of the Horizon when the proud empire, won with the blood of the noblest soldiers of the great Thothmes, was breaking up before their eyes? What mattered all the philosophies in the world, and all the gods in heaven, when Egypt’s great dominions were being wrested from her? The splendid Lebanon, the white kingdoms of the sea, Askalon and Ashdod, Tyre and Sidon, Simyra and Byblos, the hills of Jerusalem, Kadesh and the great Orontes, the fair Jordan, Tunip, Aleppo, the distant Euphrates.... What counted a creed against these? God? The truth? The only god was He of the Battles, who had led Egypt into Syria; the only truth the doctrine of the sword, which had held her there for so many years.
Looking back across these thirty-two centuries, can one yet say whether the Pharaoh was in the right, or whether his soldiers were the better minded? On the one hand there is culture, refinement, love, thought, prayer, goodwill, and peace; on the other hand, power, might, health, hardihood, bravery, and struggle. One knows that Akhnaton’s theories were the more civilised, the more ideal; but is there not a pulse which stirs in sympathy with those who were holding the citadels of Asia? We can give our approval to the ideals of the young king, but we cannot see his empire fall without bitterly blaming him for the disaster. Yet in passing judgment, in calling the boy to account for the loss of Syria, there is the consciousness that above our tribunal sits a judge to whom war must assuredly be abhorrent, and in whose eyes the struggle of the nations must utterly lack its drama. Thus, even now, Akhnaton eludes our criticism, and but raises once more that eternal question which as yet has no answer.
7. AKHNATON’S HEALTH GIVES WAY.
It is possible that the Pharaoh now realised his position, and one may suppose that he tried as best he could to pacify the turbulent princes by all the arts of diplomacy. It does not seem, however, that he yet fully appreciated the catastrophe which was now almost inevitable—the complete loss of Syria. He could not bring himself to believe that the princes of that country would play him false; and he could have had no idea that he was being so entirely fooled by such men as Aziru. But when at last the tribute ceased to come in regularly, then, too late, he knew that disaster was upon him.
The thoughts which now must have held sway in his mind could not have failed to carry him down the dark steps of depression to the very pit of despair, and one may picture him daily cast prone upon the floor before the high altar of the Aton, and nightly tossing sleepless upon his royal bed. It seems that he had placed great reliance upon a certain official, named Bikhuru, who was acting as Egyptian commissioner in Palestine; but now it is probable that he received news of that unfortunate personage’s flight, and later of his murder.[78] Then came the report that Byblos had fallen, and one is led to suppose that that truly noble soldier Ribaddi did not survive the fall of the city which he had so tenaciously held. The news of the surrender of other important Egyptian strongholds followed rapidly, and still there came the pathetic appeal for help from the minor posts which yet held out.
Akhnaton was now about twenty-eight years of age, and already the cares of the whole world seemed to rest upon his shoulders. Lean and lank was his body; his face was thin and lined with worry; and in his eye one might, perhaps, have seen that hunted look which comes to those who are dogged by disaster. It is probable that he now suffered acutely from the distressing malady to which he was a victim, and there must have been times when he felt himself upon the verge of madness. His misshapen skull came nigh to bursting with the full thoughts of his aching brain, and the sad knowledge that he had failed must have pressed upon his mind like some unrelenting finger. The invocations to the Aton which rang in his head made confusion with the cry of Syria. Now he listened to the voices of his choirs lauding the sweetness of life; and now, breaking in upon the chant, did he not hear the solemn voices of his fathers calling to him from the Hills of the West to give account of his stewardship? Could he then find solace in trees and in flowers? Could he cry “Peace” when there was red tumult in his brain?