Page 202 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1650-1580 b.c.] The Great King 163

from before the coming of the new ruling class. And of course
these gods and goddesses were no less powerful now than when
the former rulers lived—on the contrary, they required extra
propitiation if they were to accept rulers of an alien language.
And besides these old gods there were the gods who had en­
tered the land with the conquerors, the mighty sun-god who was
always the first to be invoked in any official pronouncement, and
the weather-god with his bull chariot and his ax and his thunder­
bolt. There was no difficulty about uniting the worship of the
native gods with that of the newcomers. Nature was full of gods;
on the earth and under the earth and in the heavens there was
room for an illimitable pantheon. Mursilis even found it in no
way incongruous that the royal entourage could proceed from a
ceremony in honor of the sun-god at Hattusas to a festival of the
sun-goddess at Arinna less than a day’s journey away. He was
too young to speculate whether they were different aspects of the
same divinity, or whether there was room in the sun for both a
god and a goddess.
Standing in his yellow acolyte’s robes behind the king and
queen, as they ate their ceremonial meals before the cult statues
of one after another of the gods of successive cities, he would
more often find himself dreaming of the time when he would be
old enough to lead his chariot squadron out on daring far-flung
raids beyond the Hittite frontiers. And he looked enviously at
Prince Labarnas standing in the forefront of the attendant court.
For Labarnas, though only a nephew, like himself, of King Hat-
tusilis, was the prince-elect, the officially appointed successor
to the childless king, and already a grown man with several
campaigns behind him.
Prince Mursilis knew that he was one of the aging king’s
favorite nephews. The king had often watched his weapon exer­
cises, and had many times talked to the eager boy about the
prospects of military glory and a viceroyalty in some frontier
province. But he knew nothing of the intrigues going on among
the adult members of the royal family, nor of the fate that the
weather-god had in store for him.
Things came to a head when he was fifteen and had only
three years to go before he would be allowed to take part in his