e of his
father's death, and that he was already married to Queen Tiy a year
later. Thus one must suppose that Thutmosis IV. was a father at the age
of thirteen or fourteen, and that Amenhotep III. was married to Tiy at
about the same age. The wife of Thutmosis IV. was probably a Syrian
princess, and it must have been during her regency that Amenhotep III.
married Tiy, who was not of royal blood. Amenhotep and Tiy introduced
into Egypt the luxuries of Asia; and during their brilliant reign the
Nile Valley was more open to Syrian influence than it had ever been
before. The language of Babylon was perhaps the Court tongue, and the
correspondence was written in cuneiform instead of in the hieratic
script of Egypt. Amenhotep III., as has been said, was probably partly
Asiatic; and there is, perhaps, some reason to suppose that Yuaa, the
father of Queen Tiy, was also a Syrian. One has, therefore, to picture
the Egyptian Court at this time as being saturated with foreign ideas,
which clashed with those of the orthodox Egyptians.

Queen Tiy bore several children to the King; but it was not until they
had reigned over twenty years that a son and heir was born, whom they
named Amenhotep, that being changed later to Akhnaton. It is probable
that he 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 an extensive and roomy structure, lightly built and gaily decorated.
The ceiling and pavements of its halls were fantastically painted with
scenes of animal life: wild cattle ran through reedy swamps beneath
one's feet, and many-coloured fish swam in the water; while overhead
flights of pigeons, white against a blue sky, passed across the hall,
and the wild duck hastened towards the open casements. Through curtained
doorways one might obtain glimpses of a garden planted with flowers
foreign to Egypt; and on the east of the palace the King had made a
great pleasure-lake for the Queen, surrounded by the trees of Asia.
Here, floating in her golden barge, which was named _Aton-gleams_, the
Queen might look westwards over the tree-tops to the splendid Theban
hills towering above the palace, and eastwards to the green valley of
the Nile and the three great limestone hills beyond. Amenhotep III. has
been rightly called the "Magnificent," and one may well believe that his
son Akhnaton was born to the sound of music and to the clink of golden
wine-cups. Fragme