THE FALL OF THE OLD EMPIRE. 447 
Spinden believes the tendency toward flamboyancy, extravagancy of 
design, which became more and more pronounced as the Great Period 
advanced, is a sign of decadence in art, and that it must indicate a corre- 
sponding physical, moral, and political decadence in the life of the Maya of 
the time, sufficient in itself to have encompassed the downfall and extinction 
of the Old Empire cities: 
“The explanation of the eclipse of all that was finest in Maya civilization 
is not far to seek. Any long-continued period of communal brilliancy undermines 
morals and religion and saps the nerves and muscles of the people as a whole. 
Extravagance runs before decadence, and civil and foreign war frequently hasten 
the inevitable end.” 
The evidence upon which this opinion is based, however, scarcely 
warrants such a radical interpretation, the writer believes. While it is 
undeniably true that flamboyancy in decorative motives increased steadily 
during the Great Period, reaching on the last monuments at the different 
cities an almost bewildering ramification of detail, it does not follow that the 
Maya could not have carried this extravagancy of design even further, if 
they had had more time in which to do so; and so far as technique, treatment, 
and the like are concerned, the latest monument in each city is technically 
the best, showing no loss in skill and proficiency in technical processes up to 
the very end. 
Spinden argues, and perhaps correctly, that this admittedly decadent 
tendency which became the dominant characteristic of Maya art toward 
the close of the Great Period may be traced to a corresponding social deca- 
dence, involving all phases of the life of the time. But even admitting the 
existence of widespread intellectual exhaustion following hard upon the 
heels of a period of forced esthetic brilliancy, the writer can not bring him- 
self to believe that this alone would have been sufficient to have caused the 
abandonment not only of all the Old Empire cities, but also the evacuation 
of the entire southern region as well. Such a condition as Spinden sees 
might well result in the erection of fewer and less meritorious monuments, 
but it would not account for their sudden cessation, apparently at the 
highest point of technical if not esthetic development. Men do not leave 
their homes and travel long distances through dense forests to found new 
ones for such a trivial reason as this. Indeed, in summing up his opinion of 
this hypothesis, the writer believes that in order satisfactorily to account for 
the facts observed, a more coercive physical cause must be sought; in a word, 
that the factor which set the Maya moving a second time over a large area 
was an urgent material necessity with which they found themselves con- 
fronted, rather than moral and political decay, postulated solely upon 
esthetic exuberance evidenced by pronounced flamboyancy in decorative 
motives. 
1 Spinden, 1913, p. 198. 
