Chapter IV 

 THE AZTEC 1 S 



THE Aztecs were the dominant nation on the high- 

 lands of Mexico when Cortez marched with his 

 small army to conquer New Spain. The horrible 

 sacrifices that they made to their gods and the wealth 

 and barbaric splendor of their rulers have often been de- 

 scribed. But their history in point of time covered 

 short space and their art and religion was based in a 

 large measure on achievements of the nations that had 

 preceded them. 



Mayas and Aztecs compared to Greeks and 

 Romans. A remarkably close analogy may be drawn 

 between the Mayas and Aztecs in the New World 

 and the Greeks and Romans in the Old, as regards 

 character, achievements, and relations one to the 

 other. The Mayas, like the Greeks, were an artistic 

 and intellectual people who developed sculpture, 

 painting, architecture, astronomy, and other arts 

 and sciences to a high plane. Politically, both were 

 divided into communities or states that bickered 

 and quarreled. There were temporary leagues between 

 certain cities, but real unity only against a common 

 enemy. Culturally, both were one people, n spite of 

 dialectic differences, for the warring factions were 

 bound together by a common religion and a common 

 thought. To be sure the religion of the Mayas was 

 much more barbaric than that of the Greeks but 

 in each case the subject matter was idealized and 

 beautified in art. 



The Aztecs, like the Romans, were a brusque and war- 

 like people who built upon the ruins of an earlier civili- 

 zation that fell before the force of their arms and who 



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