HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



411 



it was thofe who forfeited their lives by their crimes ; 

 or the wives of nobles, that they might accompany their 

 hunbands to the other world. That anfwer which 

 Montezuma gave to Cortes, who reproached him for 

 the cruelty of the Mexican facrifices, fhews us that al- 

 though their fentiments were not juft, they were lefs 

 inconfiftent than thofe of other nations who had fallen 

 into the fame fuperftitions. " We," he faid, have 

 ec a right to take away the life of our enemies ; we 

 <c could kill them in the heat of battle, as you do your 

 " enemies. What injuftice is there in making them, 

 " who are condemned to death, die in honour of our 

 " gods." 



The frequency of fuch facrifices was certainly not lefs 

 in Egypt, Italy, Spain, and Gaul, than in Mexico. If 

 in the city of Eliopolis alone, they annually facrificed, 

 as Manetho fays, more than a thoufand vicYims to the 

 goddefs Juno ; how many muft have been facrificed in 

 the other cities of Egypt to the famous goddefs Ifis, and 

 other innumerable deities, adored by that moft fuper- 

 ftitious nation ? How frequent muft they have been 

 among the Pelafgians, who facrificed a tenth part of 

 their children to their gods ? What numbers of men 

 muft have been confumed in thofe hecatombs of the an- 

 cient Spaniards ? And what mall we fay of the Gauls, 

 who, after having facrificed prifoners of war and male- 

 factors, made alfo innocent citizens die in facrifice, as 

 Csefar relates ? The number of the Mexican facrifices 

 has certainly been exaggerated by the Spanifli hiftorians, 

 as we have already obferved. 



The very humane Romans, who had fcruples in ob- 

 ferving human entrails, although at the end of fix cen- 

 turies and a half after the foundation of their famous 



metropolis 



