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DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION:THE COLLAPSE OF CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS:

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE AZTECS

DIRECTIONS

The following question is based on the accompanying documents. (The documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise). The question is designed to test your ability to work with and understand historical documents. Write an essay that:

Has relevant thesis and supports that thesis with evidence from the documents.

Uses all or all but one of the documents.

Analyzes the documents by grouping them in as many appropriate ways as possible and does not simply summarize the documents individually.

Takes into account both the sources of the documents and the authors’ points of view.

ESSAY PROMPT

Compare the domestic, foreign, and social reasons for the collapse of the classical Mediterranean (Roman) and Mesoamerican (Aztec) Empires.

Based on the following documents, analyze the collapses of these two classical civilizations. What types of additional documentation would be needed to compare the fall of the Roman and Aztec Empires?

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Classical civilizations in Eurasia traditionally ended around 500 CE. Classical civilizations in the Americas, specifically the Mayans, Aztecs, and Inca, however, due to their isolation experienced their rises and falls at different times in comparison with their Eurasian counterparts. Nevertheless, the declines and collapses, especially the fall of the Mexica or Aztec Empire closely resembled the end of classical civilizations such as Rome and China.

Copyright @ 2004 Paul William Philp

DOCUMENT 1

DOCUMENT 2


Bernal Díaz del Castillo, conquistador who accompanied Cortez to Tenochititlan, 1521 from his book of the Conquest

“When Cortés saw the city repopulated and the markets functioning, he assembled all the priests, captains and other chieftains, and explained to them very clearly all the matters touching on our holy faith, and told them that they must cease worshipping idols, [making] sacrifices, [holding] banquets with human flesh, [committing] robbery, [and engaging in] customary offences. He challenged them to consider how their false Idols were wrong, were evil and had lied; let them remember the lies which they had told only five days ago when seven persons had been sacrificed to them and they promised to give them victory, that everything they said to them and the priests was evil; therefore he begged them to destroy the Idols and break them in pieces, that if they did not wish to do it themselves he would do it for them. Finally, he ordered them to wash a temple with limestone, so that we might set up a chapel with a cross there.”

The Tlaxacalans, Enemies of the Aztecs Greet Cortez and the Spaniards, 1520, from a Tlaxcalan Codex

DOCUMENT 3

DOCUMENT 4


Hernan Cortez, leader of the Spanish military expedition which invaded and conquered Mexico, from his Third Letter to the Emperor Charles V of Spain, 1521

“As soon as the ships were completed and launched [into the lake], . . . I reviewed our whole force, and found it to consist of eighty-six horse[men], one hundred and eighteen archers and musketeers, seven hundred and more foot[soldiers] with swords and buckler [shields], together with three heavy iron cannon, fifteen small copper field-pieces, and ten hundred weight of powder. Having finished the review, I charged and enjoined much on the Spaniards to observe and comply with the orders I should give them in conducting the war with as great strictness as possible; and that they should take fresh courage and spirits, since they saw that our lord was leading us to victory over our enemies; for they knew that when we entered Tezcuco, we had not brought more than forty horse[s], and that God had succored us beyond our expectations, ships having arrived with horses, men, and arms, as they had seen; and that they should consider especially, that we were fighting in behalf and for the spread of our faith, and to reduce to your Majesty's service the lands and provinces that had rebelled; a consideration which should inspire them with courage and zeal to conquer or die.”

Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, Roman Catholic friar (priest), The Florentine Codex, his book and collection of Aztec writings, 1521

“Here it is told how the Spaniards killed, they murdered the Mexicas who were celebrating the Fiesta of Huitzilopochtli in the place they called The Patio of the Gods. Once they had done this, they entered the Sacred Patio to kill people. They came on foot, carrying swords and wooden and metal shields. Immediately, they surrounded those who danced, then rushed to the place where the drums were played. They attacked the man who was drumming and cut off both his arms. Then they cut off his head [with such a force] that it flew off, falling far away. At that moment, they then attacked all the people, stabbing them, spearing them, wounding them with their swords. They struck some from behind, who fell instantly to the ground with their entrails hanging out [of their bodies]. They cut off the heads of some and smashed the heads of others into little pieces.”

DOCUMENT 5

DOCUMENT 6


Cortés Puts Moctezuma Under House ArrestAztec Image From Fray Bernardino de Sahagún,

The Florentine Codex, 1521

Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman historian from his history, speaking of the Goths and steppe nomads, c. 400 CE.

“Sometimes when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle, they form a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They are very quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of surprising their enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse, then reunite. . . And in one respect, you may pronounce them the most formidable of all warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds. . . but when they are at close quarters they fight with sword, without any regard for their own safety; and often while their antagonists are warding off their blows, they entangle them with twisted cords.”

DOCUMENT 7

DOCUMENT 8


Procopius of Caesarea, Byzantine or Eastern Roman historian describing Alaric's Sack of Rome, 410 CE; History of the Wars [written c. 550 CE]

“But the Visigoths, . . . at first entered into an alliance with the Emperor Arcadius, but at a later time, under the leadership of Alaric, they became hostile to both emperors, and, beginning with Thrace, treated all Europe as an enemy's land. Now the emperor Honorius had before this time been sitting in Rome, with never a thought of war in his mind, but glad, I think, if men allowed him to remain quiet in his palace. But when word was brought that the barbarians with a great army were not far off, . . . he abandoned the palace and fled in disorderly fashion to Ravenna, a strong city lying just about at the end of the Ionian Gulf, while some say that he brought in the barbarians himself, because an uprising had been started against him among his subjects; . . . And the barbarians, finding that they had no hostile force to encounter them, became the most cruel of all men. For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, . . . And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. . . . They also gathered as plunder all the money out of all Europe, and, most important of all, they left in Rome nothing whatever of public or private wealth when they moved on to Gaul. But I shall now tell how Alaric captured Rome.”

Salvianus, Roman citizen and Catholic priest, from his writings, late 5th century C.E.

“But what else can these wretched people wish for, they who suffer the incessant and even continuous destruction of public tax levies. They desert their homes, . . . they seek exile. The enemy is more lenient to them than the tax collectors. This is proved by this very fact, that they flee to the enemy in order to avoid the full force of the heavy tax levy. . . . Do we think we are unworthy of the punishment of divine severity when we thus wickedly punish the poor? Do we think, when we are constantly wicked, that God should not exercise His justice against all of us. The Franks are ignorant of this crime of injustice. The Huns are immune to these crimes. . . . There in the districts taken over by the barbarians, there is one desire among all Romans, that they should never again find it necessary to pass under Roman jurisdiction. . . . And we wonder why the Goths are not conquered by our portion of the population, when the Romans prefer to live among them rather than with[in] the empire.”

DOCUMENT 9

DOCUMENT 10


Flavius Renatus Vegetius, a Roman military specialist, A Book about Military Affairs, late 4th century C.E.

"I know that the height of recruits has always been required to conform to a standard measurements, so that only men who stand six feet or at least five feet, ten inches have been accepted for service in the cavalry or in the first cohorts of the legions. But in those days, the population was larger, and more men entered the armed forces, because the civil service (government positions and the church hierarchy) was not drawing away our most eligible young men. And therefore, if the need be pressing, it is fine to take account nor so much of a man’s stature as his physical strength.”

Theodoret, Catholic Church historian, his Ecclesiastical History, volumes 17 – 18, c. 395 C.E.

“In consequence of sedition, the Emperor [Theodosius] . . . slew seven thousand without any forms of law, and without even having judicial sentence passed upon them; When Saint Ambrose heard of this deplorable catastrophe, he said "You do not reflect, it seems, O Emperor, on the guilt you have incurred by that great massacre; do you not perceive the enormity of your crime? You must not be dazzled by the splendor of the purple you wear. Your subjects, O Emperor, are of the same nature as yourself, and not only so, but are likewise your fellow servants. . . . How would you look upon the temple of the one Lord of all? How could you lift up in prayer hands steeped in the blood of so unjust a massacre? The Emperor, who had been brought up in the knowledge of Holy Writ, and who knew well the distinction between the ecclesiastical and the temporal power, submitted to the rebuke, and with many tears and groans returned to his palace."

DOCUMENT 11


VANDALS GOTHSHUNS

EASTERN ROMANEMPIRE

THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN AFTER THE GERMANIC AND HUNNIC MIGRATIONS, c. 476 C.E.

FOOTNOTES

1. Nancy Fitch, Divisions and Conflicts Between the Tlaxacalans and the Mexicas at AHA Learning and Teaching in the Digital Age: The Conquest of Mexico (Accessed March 28, 2004); [Information service on-line]; available http://www.theaha.org/ Tl/LessonPlans/ca/Fitch/tlaxcala.htm

2. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Véridique histoire de la conquête de la nouvelle-espagne (True History of the Conquest of New Spain), 4 volumes. (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1878, 1521), Volume 2, Chapter 83.

3. Hernan Cortés, The Despatches of Hernando Cortes, the Conqueror of Mexico, Addressed to the Emperor Charles V, Written during the Conquest, and Containing a Narrative of Its Events. Edited and Trans. by George Folsom. (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1843), pages 255-257.

4. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España. (General History of the Matters Concerning New Spain). Edited by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, 4 volumes (Madrid: Fototipia de Hauser y Menet, 1905), Book 12, Chapter Twenty.

5. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España. (General History of the Matters Concerning New Spain). Edited by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, 4 volumes (Madrid: Fototipia de Hauser y Menet, 1905), Book 12, Chapter Twenty

6. David Willis McCullough, ed, Chronicles of the Barbarians: Firsthand Accounts of Pillage and Conquest, From the Ancient World to the Fall of Constantinople. (New York: History Book Club, 1998), pages 122 – 123.

7. Procopius, History of the Wars, 7 vols., trans. H. B. Dewing (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press & Wm. Heinemann, 1914; reprint ed., 1953-54), volume II, pages 11 – 23.

8. J. F. O’Sullivan, trans, The Writings of Salvian the Presybter, Fathers of the Church Series (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947), volume 3, pages 138 and 141.

9. Jo Ann Shelton, ed. As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History. (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1988), page 268.

10. William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, 298-300.


http://www.theaha.org/Tl/LessonPlans/ca/Fitch/tlaxcala.htm

VOCABULARY: THE COLLAPSE OF THE AZTECS AND ROMANS

1. 1520 – 1521 CE

2. HERNAN CORTES

3. CONQUISTADORS

4. MEXICA (AZTECS)

5. MOCTEZUMA

6. TRIBUTE SYSTEM

7. HUMAN SACRIFICE

8. TENOCHITITLAN

9. QUETZALCOATL

10. MALINCHE

11. 395 – 476 CE

12. WESTERN EMPIRE

13. EASTERN EMPIRE (BYZANTINE EMPIRE)

14. MILITARY CRISIS: NOMADIC INVASIONS, MERCENARIES

15. CATHOLIC CHURCH, DECLINE OF PATRIOTISM

16. BUREAUCRACY: CHURCH VS. STATE

17. SUCCESSION CRISIS

18. TAXATION

19. SERFDOM

20. DECLINE OF TRADE; DRAINING OF WEALTH TO THE EASTERN EMPIRE

21. VOLKERWANDERUNG - (VISIGOTHS, OSTROGOTHS, VANDALS, FRANKS)

22. ATTILA AND THE HUNS

23. SACK OF ROME, 410 CE


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