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When the Spanish conquistadors first saw the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, it was so beautiful. They thought they were dreaming. They called it the Venice of the Americas. At the height of the Aztec empire in 1519 the Spaniards landed on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Having heard about the fabulous riches of the Aztecs, they'd come to make their fortunes. After 12 weeks of marching they found the Aztec capital. It was built entirely on water, and with over 200,000 inhabitants was one of the largest cities in all the world. Mexico City was built on the site of Tenochitilan. An area on the outskirts of today's capital, still gives a flavor of what it might have been like. This region still supplies the city with flowers, just as it did 500 years ago for the rituals in the Aztec capital. It was these rituals which so shocked the Spaniards.
We saw the men being dragged up the steps to be sacrificed. The priests laid them down on their backs and cutting open their chests, drew out their palpitating hearts which they offered to the idols before them. Then, they flung the bodies down the steps.
Interpreting the cultures of Mexico's past has been a lifetime study for novelist Carlos Fuentes.
The whole conception of the world of the Aztecs is so alien to our modern sense of the world that we can only guess, we can only hint. The Aztec regime, to put it in a nutshell, was a regime at odds with itself.
How could the Aztecs create a beautiful city with such violence at its heart? To investigate the contradiction, it's necessary to go back to the time when the Aztecs first arrived in the valley of Mexico.
The original nomadic tribe of native Americans lived in the north of what is now Mexico. A tribal prophecy told them to journey south and build a city where they saw an eagle landing on a cactus. According to their history it was here in this inhospitable swampland that the prophecy came true.
conquistador: n. 征服者征服者，尤指16世纪入侵墨西哥、中美洲或秘鲁的印第安的西班牙士兵
palpitate: v. (心)悸动
regime: n. 政权
nomadic: a. 游牧的
cactus: n. [植]仙人掌
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