But he was a philosopher by nature rather than a king.

The purpose of his life was to reform the religion of Egypt, to replace it, in fact, by a pantheistic monotheism, the visible symbol of which was the solar disk.

For the first time in history a religious persecution was entered on; the worship of Amon, the god of Thebes, was proscribed, and his very name erased from the monuments.

Amen-hotep changed his own name to Khu-n-Aten, "the glory of the solar disk," and every effort was made to extirpate the state religion, of which he was himself the official head.
But the ancient priesthood of Thebes proved too strong for the king.

He left the city of his fathers, and built a new capital farther north, where its ruins are now known as Tel el-Amarna.