Page 501 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

The great island-capital itself, Mexico-
Tenochtitlan as the Aztecs styled it, was con-
nected to the mainland by three main cause-
ways. In a sense it was a kind of double city, as
the early Aztec polity had absorbed the once-
independent Tlatelolco in the northern part of
the island. Tlatelolco's great market, in a square
described as larger than the one in Salamanca,
was what had so impressed Cortes and Bernal
Diaz. With its myriad canals thronged with
canoe traffic, Mexico-Tenochtitlan reminded
the conquistadors of Venice. In the absence of
real census data, one can only guess the size of
5
the population in 1519. Cortes said the city was
as big as Seville or Cordoba, neither of which
accommodated more than seventy-five thou-
sand souls in the early sixteenth century. The
source known as the Anonymous Conqueror 6
assigned the city sixty thousand households,
pies who had inherited the mantle of the old blance to it: both represent the rapid progres- which would suggest a population of at least two
Toltec civilization, which had fallen in the sion from a collection of semibarbarian tribes hundred thousand. This latter estimate is prob-
twelfth century. These looked down upon the to an empire. In 1427 the fourth Aztec ruler ably too high: the comparable island-city of
uncouth, warlike newcomers who by this time or huei tlatoani ("great speaker"), whose name Venice had only one hundred fifty thousand
were calling themselves "Mexica," rather than was Itzcoatl, defeated the cruel Tepanec over- inhabitants at that time, and it is unlikely that
"Azteca," their old name. Following a prophecy lords on the mainland and took over their Tenochtitlan, which consisted largely of one-
of the great Huitzilopochtli, and after a further extensive domain in central Mexico. By the end story houses, had more residents than this.
period of poverty-stricken wandering, the of the fifteenth century the Aztecs controlled a Yet it was one of the world's largest cities.
Aztecs eventually settled on low islands in the loosely organized empire that reached to the The population was divided into four classes :
7
midst of the huge, shallow lake that then filled Gulf and Pacific coasts and included most but the nobility (pipiltin), including the royal
much of the valley. There, the god had said, not all of the Mesoamerican peoples situated household, with extensive private estates and
they would find an eagle perched on a prickly- west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Lack of rights to tribute; the free commoners (mace-
pear cactus (tenochtli) and there they were to hard data makes it risky to estimate the number
found their capital, Tenochtitlan — whence their of people brought under the sway of Tenochtit-
destiny would lead them to rule the world. And lan by the Aztec military juggernaut, but the
so it happened. figure probably lies between ten and twenty
The story of the rise to power of the Aztecs million. Strictly speaking, the empire was a
closely parallels in time that of the Ottoman triple alliance of three polities of the Valley of
Turks in the Old World and bears some resem- Mexico: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.
However, this alliance was completely domi-
nated by the Aztec capital itself, which claimed
a lion's share of the tribute and war booty.
Although the political economy of the Aztec
state is not fully understood, its main support
seems to have been heavy tribute from the
lands the Aztecs had conquered. Vast quantities
of maize, beans, and other foodstuffs came into
Tenochtitlan on a regular basis, along with more
than a million cotton mantles, large numbers of
war costumes, and other manufactured goods.
There were daily markets in the towns and
cities, the major ones so large that they required
special market judges to settle disputes and
ensure fair trade. Operating outside the market-
vendor world were hereditary guilds of long-
distance merchants, the pochteca, whose task it
was to travel, often in disguise, to distant mar-
kets of peoples such as the Maya. There they
fig. 3. Colossal Relief of the Dismembered Moon traded for foreign luxury items, quetzal feath-
Goddess Coyolxauhqui. Aztec, stone. Museo del ers, for example, to be brought back to the Aztec
Templo Mayor, Mexico City royal palace.

500 CIRCA 1492