When Amenhotep III. died, the new king, Akhnaton, carried out the revolution which had been pending for many years, and absolutely banned the worship of Amon, with all that it involved.  He built himself a new capital at El Amarna, and there he instituted the worship of the sun, or rather of the heat or power of the sun, under the name of Aton.  In so far as the revolution constituted a breaking away from tiresome convention, the young Horemheb seems to have been with the King.  No one of intelligence could deny that the new religion and new philosophy which was preached at El Amarna was more worthy of consideration on general lines than was the narrow doctrine of the Amon priesthood; and all thinkers must have rejoiced at the freedom from bonds which had become intolerable.  But the world was not ready, and indeed is still not ready, for the schemes which Akhnaton propounded; and the unpractical model-kingdom which was uncertainly developing under the hills of El Amarna must have already been seen to contain the elements of grave danger to the State.

Nevertheless the revolution offered many attractions.  The frivolous members of the court, always ready for change and excitement, welcomed with enthusiasm the doctrine of the moral and simple life which the King and his advisers preached, just as in the decadent days before the French Revolution the court, bored with licentiousness, gaily welcomed the morality-painting of the young Greuze.  And to the more serious-minded, such as Horemheb seems to have been, the movement must have appealed in its imperial aspect.  The new god Aton was largely worshipped in Syria, and it seems evident that Akhnaton had hoped to bind together the heterogeneous nations of the empire by a bond of common worship.  The Asiatics were not disposed to worship Amon, but Aton appealed to them as much as any god, and Horemheb must have seen great possibilities in a common religion.

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.