The purpose of this article is to examine the aims of Aztec warfare. It was a commonly held belief that all wars were similar to their highly ritualistic “Flowery Wars”—that their aim is to have their adversaries yield to Huitzilopochtli—but this ignores ethnohistorical accounts. Many famous anthropologists, including Jacques Soustelle, a member of the Académie française, believed “nothing would have seemed more incomprehensible to the ancient Mexicans, nor more atrocious, than the characteristic feature of our modern war: huge destruction, the extermination of whole nations, the annihilation of states.”
In fact, according to the Ramirez Codex, Aztec forces would invade cities and kill and wound “without pity whatsoever.” They would pursue those who fled the destruction “like savage lions, filled with fury and ire.” Other sources, such as the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, concur: “these wars lasted 115 days… entering the city, they destroyed and razed it, tearing down all the most prominent houses of the lords and illustrious people and temples, putting everything to the sword.”
This article is quite good, if a little redundant. It very convincingly dispels an apparently common misconception that the Aztecs were generally peaceful and would avoid destruction if they could. It is probably not the most useful article for somebody who doesn't already know a lot about the Aztecs. It makes many references to names and places without any sort of background information and it could be hard to follow. If you aren't deeply interested in the Aztecs it would be very dry reading just to find out "yes, the Aztecs were sometimes destructive."
(a depiction of Tloloc in the Codex Ixtlilxochitl (source))
Aztec Warfare by Barry Isaac
The purpose of this article is to examine the aims of Aztec warfare. It was a commonly held belief that all wars were similar to their highly ritualistic “Flowery Wars”—that their aim is to have their adversaries yield to Huitzilopochtli—but this ignores ethnohistorical accounts. Many famous anthropologists, including Jacques Soustelle, a member of the Académie française, believed “nothing would have seemed more incomprehensible to the ancient Mexicans, nor more atrocious, than the characteristic feature of our modern war: huge destruction, the extermination of whole nations, the annihilation of states.”
In fact, according to the Ramirez Codex, Aztec forces would invade cities and kill and wound “without pity whatsoever.” They would pursue those who fled the destruction “like savage lions, filled with fury and ire.” Other sources, such as the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, concur: “these wars lasted 115 days… entering the city, they destroyed and razed it, tearing down all the most prominent houses of the lords and illustrious people and temples, putting everything to the sword.”
This article is quite good, if a little redundant. It very convincingly dispels an apparently common misconception that the Aztecs were generally peaceful and would avoid destruction if they could. It is probably not the most useful article for somebody who doesn't already know a lot about the Aztecs. It makes many references to names and places without any sort of background information and it could be hard to follow. If you aren't deeply interested in the Aztecs it would be very dry reading just to find out "yes, the Aztecs were sometimes destructive."
(a depiction of Tloloc in the Codex Ixtlilxochitl (source))