rance of castellated cities. Along with the
systematic irrigation and increased dependence upon horticulture, we
find evidences of greater density of population; and we see in the
victorious confederacy a more highly developed organization for adding
to its stock of food and other desirable possessions by the systematic
plunder of neighbouring weaker communities. Naturally such increase in
numbers and organization entails some increase in the number of officers
and some differentiation of their functions, as illustrated in the
representation of the clans (_calpulli_) in the tribal council
(_tlatocan_), by speakers (_tlatoani_) chosen for the purpose, and not
by the official heads (_calpullec_) of the clan. Likewise in the
military commander-in-chief (_tlacatecuhtli_) we observe a marked
increase in dignity, and--as I have already suggested and hope to
maintain--we find that his office has been clothed with sacerdotal
powers, and has thus taken a decided step toward kingship of the ancient
type, as depicted in the Homeric poems.

[Sidenote: Aztec priesthood: human sacrifices.]

No feature of the advance is more noteworthy than the development of
the medicine-men into an organized priesthood.[128] The presence of this
priesthood and its ritual was proclaimed to the eyes of the traveller in
ancient Mexico by the numerous tall truncated pyramids (_teocallis_), on
the flat summits of which men, women, and children were sacrificed to
the gods. This custom of human sacrifice seems to have been a
characteristic of the middle period of barbarism, and to have survived,
with diminishing frequency, into the upper period. There are abundant
traces of its existence throughout the early Aryan world, from Britain
to Hindustan, as well as among the ancient Hebrews and their
kindred.[129] But among all these peoples, at the earliest times at
which we can study them with trustworthy records, we find the custom of
human sacrifice in an advanced stage of decline, and generally no longer
accompanied by the custom of cannibalism in which it probably
originated.[130] Among the Mexicans, however, when they were first
visited by the Spaniards, cannibalism flourished as nowhere else in the
world except perhaps in Fiji, and human sacrifices were conducted on
such a scale as could not have been witnessed in Europe without going
back more than forty centuries.

[Footnote 128: The priesthood was not hereditary, nor did it
form a