The imperial centre of the Inca Empire forms a stark contrast with that of the Aztec. Moctezuma, despite his grandeur (his palace contained everything from an aviary to quarters for troupes of comic dwarfs), was officially just the tlatoani or ‘first speaker’ in a council of aristocrats, and his empire officially a Triple Alliance of three cities. For all the bloodthirsty spectacle, the Aztec Empire was really a confederation of noble families. Indeed, the spectacle itself seems to have been at least partly rooted in the same spirit of aristocratic one-upmanship that spurred Aztec nobles to
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