The Egyptian

2

All night long the crowds watched before the temple. The poor lay on the cool lawns of the flower gardens while the priests made continual and lavish sacrifice to Ammon and dispensed sacrificial meat, bread, and wine to the people. They called on Ammon in a loud voice and promised eternal life to all who believed in him and gave their lives for his sake.

The priests might have prevented bloodshed if they had so wished. They had but to submit, and Pharaoh would have left them in peace and not persecuted them since his god abominated persecution and hatred. But power and wealth had gone to their heads so that not even death deterred them. They knew that neither the people nor Ammon’s few guards could oppose an armed force trained and toughened in war, but that such an army would sweep all aside as rising waters sweep aside dry straw. They desired bloodshed between Ammon and Aton so as to make a murderer and criminal of Pharaoh, who would then be allowing dirty Negroes to shed the pure blood of Egypt. They desired sacrifice to be made to Ammon that he might endure to all eternity, even were his image to be overthrown and his temple closed.

After this long night the disk of Aton rose at last above the three eastern hills, and cool darkness gave place to the scorching heat of the day. In every street and public place horns were blown, and heralds read aloud a proclamation in which Pharaoh affirmed that Ammon was a false god and had now been deposed, that he was accursed to all eternity, that his name should be erased from all inscriptions and monuments and also from the tombs. All the temples of Ammon, both in the Upper and Lower Kingdoms; all his land, cattle, slaves, buildings, gold, silver, and copper were forfeit to Pharaoh and his god. Pharaoh promised to transform the temples into open walks and the gardens into public parks and the sacred lakes into public lakes where the poor might bathe and draw water freely. He promised to divide the land of Ammon among those who owned no land, that they might cultivate it in Aton’s name.

The people listened to this proclamation in silence, as custom required. Then everywhere-in the streets and squares and before the temples-there arose a thunderous roar of “Ammon! Ammon!” So tremendous was the shout that the very, stones and walls seemed to give it utterance. And now the black troops faltered. Their faces turned gray beneath the red and white paint, their eyes rolled white in their heads, and as they looked about them they saw that despite their numbers they were but a few in this mighty city they were seeing for the first time. Because of the great noise there were not many who heard that Pharaoh, to dissociate his name from that of Ammon, that day assumed the name of Akhnaton, the favored of Aton.

The shout woke even Horemheb, who stretched himself and murmured smilingly, with his eyes still shut, “It is you, Baket, the beloved of Ammon, my princess? Did you call me?”

But when I nudged him in the side, he opened his eyes, and the smile fell from his face like an old garment. He felt his head and said, “By Set and all devils, yours was a potent drink, Sinuhe. I was dreaming, I think.”

I said to him, “The people are calling on Ammon.”

Then he remembered everything and was in haste to go. We went through the wine shop, where we stumbled over the bare legs of girls and soldiers. Horemheb snatched a loaf from the shelf and emptied a jug of beer, and together we hastened to the temple through streets deserted as never before. On the way he washed at a fountain, plunging his head into the water with much puffing and blowing, for the crocodile’s tail still pounded in his head.

The plump little cat, whose name was Pepitamon, was disposing his troops and chariots before the temple. When he received word that all was ready and that every man understood his orders, he rose up in his gilded chair and cried out in a shrill voice, “Soldiers of Egypt! Bold men of Kush! Valiant Shardanas! Go now and overturn the image of Ammon the accursed, according to Pharaoh’s command, and great shall be your reward!”

Having said this, he felt that he had done all that was required of him, and he sat himself down again contentedly on the soft cushions of his chair and let his slaves fan him, for it was already exceedingly hot.

But before the temple stood a countless throng of white-clad people, men and women, old folk and children, and they did not yield before the advancing troops and chariots. With a great shout they cast themselves down so that the horses trampled on them and the wheels rolled over their bodies. The officers saw that they could not advance without bloodshed and called on their men to retire until they had received further orders, for Pharaoh had forbidden the shedding of blood. But blood already was flowing over the stones of the square, where the injured groaned and shrieked, and there was great excitement among the people when they saw the soldiers draw back. They believed the victory was theirs.

Meanwhile, Pepitamon remembered that in his proclamation Pharaoh had changed his name to Akhnaton and suddenly resolved to change his also, to find favor with Pharaoh. When the officers came to take counsel with him, sweating and perplexed, he affected not to hear them, but opened his eyes wide and said, “I know of no Pepitamon. My name is Pepitaton; Pepi the blessed of Aton.”

The officers, each of whom carried a gold-braided whip and commanded a thousand men, were exceedingly irritated, and the commander of the chariots exclaimed, “To the bottomless pit with Aton! What is this foolery? Give us your orders!”

Then Pepitaton mocked them, saying, “Are you warriors or women? Disperse the people but shed no blood, for that Pharaoh has expressly forbidden.”

When the officers heard this they looked at one another and spat on the ground. Then, since there was nothing more they could do, they returned to our men.

While these high councils were in progress, the people pressed forward on the retreating Negroes, wrenching up stones from the street and hurling them, swinging their pestles and broken boughs and shouting. The crowd was very great, and men exhorted one another with yells. Many Negroes felled by stones lay on the ground in their own blood. The horses went wild with the outcry ot the people and reared and shied so that the charioteers had much ado to hold them. When the commander of the chariots returned to his troop, he found that the best and most costly animal of all had had an eye knocked out and was lame in one leg, having been struck by a stone.

This made the man so savage that he began to howl with rage and cried, “My arrow of gold, my roebuck, my sunbeam! They have put out your eye and broken your leg-but in truth you are dearer to my heart than all these people and the gods put together. Therefore I will be revenged-but let us not shed blood, for that Pharaoh has expressly forbidden!”

At the head of his chariots he tore into the mob, and every charioteer snatched up the noisiest of the rebels into his chariot, while the horses trampled the aged and the children and the shouts were turned to groaning. But those whom the soldiers caught up they strangled in the reins so that no blood flowed; then they wheeled and drove back with the corpses trailing behind them to strike terror into the hearts of the people. The Nubians unstrung their bows, charged in, and strangled their victims with the bowstrings. They also strangled children, and defended themselves against stones and blows with their shields. But every painted Negro who became separated from his fellows was trampled underfoot by the rabble and torn to pieces. They succeeded in dragging down the driver from one chariot, and they smashed his head against the paving stones amid howls of frenzy.

The royal commander-in-chief Pepitaton grew uneasy as time passed, and the water clock beside him gurgled away, and the roar of the people met his ear like the rushing of a torrent. He summoned his officers and rebuked them for the delay, and he said, “My Sudanese cat Mimo is to kitten today; I am anxious about her because I am not there to help her. In the name of Aton go in and overturn that accursed statue that we may all go home, or by Set and all devils I will snatch the chains from your necks and break your whips; I swear it!”

When the officers heard this, they knew that they were betrayed, whatever the outcome, and they resolved at least to save their honor as soldiers. They re-formed their men and charged, hurling the people aside like chaff before a flood; the spears of the Negroes were reddened, blood flowed over the square, and a hundred times a hundred men, women, and children perished that morning in the name of Aton. For when the priests saw that the soldiers were attacking in earnest, they closed the pylon gates, and the people fled this way and that like stampeded sheep. Negroes drunk with blood pursued them and slew them with arrows, while the charioteers stormed though the streets transfixing every fugitive with their spears. But in their flight the people forced their way into the temple of Aton, overturned the altars, and slew such priests as they caught, and the pursuing chariots thundered in after them. Thus the stone pavement of Aton’s temple was soon running with blood and strewn with the dying.

But the walls of Ammon’s temple blocked the way for Pepitaton’s black troops, who were not accustomed to storming such defenses, nor did their battering rams avail to force the copper gates. The soldiers could do no more than encircle the temple, and from the walls the priests yelled imprecations upon them, and the temple guards let fly at them with their arrows and hurled their spears, so that many a painted Negro fell, and to no purpose. From the open place before the temple rose the thick reek of blood, and flies from all over the city gathered there in the billowing dust. Pepitaton came in his golden chair and turned gray in the face at the hideous stench; he bade slaves burn incense about him, and he wept and rent his clothes at the sight of the countless dead.

Yet his heart was full of uneasiness on account of Mimo the Sudanese cat, so he said to his officers, “I fear that Pharaoh’s wrath will be most terrible, for you have not overturned the image of Ammon, but instead the blood flows in streams along the gutters. I must hasten to Pharaoh to report on what has passed, and I shall try to speak on your behalf. At the same time I shall be able to call at my house, to see my cat, and change my clothes, for the smell here is fearful and soaks into the very skin. We cannot storm the temple walls today. Pharaoh himself must decide what is to be done now.”

Nothing further occurred that day. The officers withdrew their men from the walls and from among the dead, and they caused the supply wagons to be driven up that the Nubians might eat.

During the nights that followed, fires raged in the city, houses were rifled, painted Negroes drank wine from golden cups, and Shardanas lay in soft, canopied beds. All the dregs of the city slunk forth: thieves, tomb robbers, and footpads who had no fear of the gods, not even of Ammon. Piously they blessed the name of Aton and entered his temple, which had been hastily cleansed, receiving the cross of life at the hands of such priests as survived. They hung this about their necks as a protecting talisman which would enable them to steal, murder, and pillage at their ease under cover of night. Many years were to pass before Thebes reverted to what it had once been, for during these days power and wealth drained away from it like blood from a plethoric body.