46 Fun Facts About Montezuma II

Legend says Montezuma's capital was founded where an eagle perched on which plant?

A cactus: in the founding legend the wandering Mexica were told to settle where they saw an eagle on a prickly pear, and the scene now sits at the centre of Mexico's flag.

What did Cortés do to Montezuma within days of being welcomed into his capital?

Took him hostage: six days after arriving as a guest, Cortés seized Montezuma in his own city, reckoning the Mexica would not attack while their ruler was in Spanish hands.

What was the name of the Aztec capital where Montezuma ruled?

Tenochtitlan stood on an island in a lake, laced with canals; after the siege of 1521 the Spaniards tore down what was left and built Mexico City on its ruins.

A Spanish soldier described Montezuma being served which frothy drink in golden cups at dinner?

Chocolate: the soldier-chronicler watched it brought to Montezuma in golden cups and counted some fifty frothing jars carried in, with the leftovers handed out to his jesters and dancers.

'Montezuma's revenge' is a colloquial name for what?

Traveller's diarrhoea picked up in Mexico earned the nickname Montezuma's revenge, as if the emperor were punishing visiting foreigners; 'Delhi belly' is the Indian equivalent.

The opening line of the US Marines' Hymn, 'From the Halls of Montezuma', refers to which 1847 engagement?

The Battle of Chapultepec saw Marines help storm the hilltop castle guarding Mexico City in September 1847, though its halls were begun for a Spanish viceroy more than 250 years after Montezuma died.

Montezuma's name in the Aztec language combines a noun meaning 'lord' with a verb meaning what?

To frown in anger: joined to the word for lord it gives 'he frowns like a lord', a name that Spanish pens then bent into Motecusuma, Moctezuma and Montezuma.

What does Xocoyotzin, the name that told Montezuma II apart from Montezuma I, mean?

Honoured young one: chronicles used it to tell him from his great-grandfather, 'Old Moctezuma'; the Aztecs had no regnal numbers, so the 'II' was added later by historians.

Montezuma II was the great-grandson of Moctezuma I and the son of which emperor?

Axayácatl was his father, yet the son did not follow him directly: Axayácatl's brothers Tízoc and Ahuitzotl each ruled in turn before the electors chose Montezuma.

Before his election, Montezuma served as a priest in the temple of which Mexica war god?

Huitzilopochtli, god of war and of the sun: Montezuma was a priest of his temple as well as a proven general, and both careers counted with the electors who chose him.

Which 52-year rite fell early in Montezuma's reign?

The New Fire ceremony: every hearth was left to go out, then priests kindled a fresh flame on a victim's breast, and runners carried it out to relight the temples and homes.

Which natural disaster struck central Mexico in 1505, early in Montezuma's reign?

A drought and famine: the rains failed, the harvests collapsed across central Mexico, and many people left the capital for the Gulf coast, where there was still food to be had.

Montezuma widened the gap between nobles and commoners by banning commoners from doing what?

He barred commoners from serving in the royal palaces, reversing his predecessors' habit of promoting on merit, replaced much of the court with nobles and made them live in the capital.

Montezuma's palace included the Totocalli, a famous facility of what kind?

A zoo: beyond the birds that gave the House of Birds its name, it held jaguars, pumas and rattlesnakes, and a Spanish soldier wrote that their roaring and hissing made the place sound like hell.

What was the windowless, all-black room in Montezuma's palace used for?

The Casa Denegrida was Montezuma's room for meditation, where he reflected on the omens his seers reported; its remains were found in 2008 under central Mexico City.

Which modern Mexico City building stands on the site of Montezuma's palace?

The National Palace on the Zócalo stands where Montezuma's 'New Houses' stood; Cortés rebuilt the site as his own residence, and it later became the viceroys' palace.

Montezuma's warriors fought with the macuahuitl, a wooden club edged with razor-sharp blades of which material?

Obsidian: flaked blades of it were set along the wooden edge, and Spanish eyewitnesses claimed that a single blow from one could kill a horse.

Xoconosco, the far southern province of Montezuma's empire, lies on the Pacific coast of which modern Mexican state?

Chiapas: the strip stayed contested long after the Aztecs, joining Mexico only in 1842, and a treaty with Guatemala did not settle the border there until 1882.

Montezuma received the first reports of Europeans landing on his coast in 1518, from the expedition of whom?

Juan de Grijalva's ships were hailed by coastal people waving white flags, who traded gold with his men; word of that gold reached Cuba, and Cortés was sent out the next year.

What did Montezuma and Cortés exchange as gifts when they first met on the causeway in November 1519?

Necklaces: Cortés hung glass beads scented with musk on Montezuma and received gold ones in return, and the emperor then lodged the Spaniards in his late father's palace.

Some Aztec sources say Montezuma feared the Spaniards because he believed Cortés might be which returning god?

Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, was said to have sailed east and promised to return; scholars such as Anthony Pagden argue the story was elaborated after the conquest.

According to Cortés's own letters, Montezuma volunteered to cede his entire realm to which monarch?

Charles V of Spain was told so in Cortés's Second Letter of 1520, but Montezuma's words of welcome may have been courtly Nahua politeness, which could say one thing and mean the reverse.

Montezuma's nobles were cut down in the 1520 Massacre in the Great Temple while doing what?

Dancing at a festival: the unarmed nobles were celebrating the spring feast of Toxcatl when the Spanish garrison attacked them, and the killing brought the whole city down on the Spaniards.

Which captain did Cortés leave in charge of the capital when he marched to confront Narváez?

Pedro de Alvarado, whom the Mexica called Tonatiuh ('the Sun'), was left in charge; saying he feared a rising, he struck first, and the bloodshed left his men besieged in their quarters until Cortés hurried back.

How do Spanish accounts say Montezuma was fatally injured while addressing his people from a rooftop?

Stones thrown by the crowd struck him as he appealed for calm, the Spanish chroniclers wrote, and he died within days; the Aztecs believed instead that the Spaniards had murdered him.

After the Aztecs renounced Montezuma, which brother of his was named tlatoani in his place?

Cuitláhuac, lord of Iztapalapa and Montezuma's brother, led the rising that mauled the Spaniards as they fled the city on 30 June 1520, then tried to rally other peoples against them.

Who was the last Aztec emperor, defending Montezuma's capital through the final siege of 1521?

Cuauhtémoc, Montezuma's son-in-law, held out through the siege; the Spaniards later tortured him to find hidden gold, and Cortés had him hanged on a march to Honduras.

Mexico City's plaza marking La Noche Triste, the Spaniards' 1520 flight, was renamed in 2021 for which night?

Victorious Night (Noche Victoriosa): the city renamed the plaza and its old tree, where Cortés is said to have wept over his losses, to recast the Spaniards' rout as a Mexica triumph.

The feather headdress attributed to Montezuma, which Mexico has long asked to have back, is kept in which European city?

Vienna's Weltmuseum holds the headdress, which surfaced in a Habsburg castle collection; despite its name, there is no firm evidence that Montezuma ever owned or wore it.

What did Montezuma do after dinner with the painted, gilded tubes brought to his table?

Smoked tobacco: a soldier at court watched one of the tubes lit once the tables were cleared; Montezuma drew in the smoke for a short while and then fell asleep.

Which Nahua woman served as Cortés's interpreter and bore him a son, Martín, one of the first mestizos?

La Malinche, also called Malintzin or Doña Marina, first worked in a chain: Cortés spoke Spanish to a countryman who knew Maya, and she turned his Maya into the Mexica tongue and back.

Which conquistador wrote The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, the eyewitness memoir describing Montezuma's court?

Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a foot soldier under Cortés, wrote it in old age in Guatemala, stung by a chaplain's history that gave Cortés all the glory and the rank and file none.

Which Venetian Baroque composer wrote the 1733 opera Motezuma about the Aztec emperor?

Antonio Vivaldi's Motezuma opened in Venice in 1733, then the music vanished for well over two centuries, until most of the score turned up in a Berlin choir's archive in the early 2000s.

Montezuma kept up 'flower wars' with nearby rival states, staged fights meant to win what?

Captives for sacrifice: by his own reported account, Montezuma left one rival state unconquered because fighting it trained his soldiers and kept the temples supplied with prisoners.

Cortés's army reached Montezuma's valley in 1519 over a high pass beside which volcano?

Popocatépetl, the 'Smoking Mountain': the army crossed the saddle between it and its twin, Iztaccíhuatl, a route that is still called the Pass of Cortés.

Montezuma's envoys gave Cortés two great discs of gold and silver representing what?

The sun and the moon: the gold sun and the silver moon, each as broad as a cartwheel, were sent to buy the strangers off; Cortés shipped them to Spain and marched inland anyway.

Which Canadian rock star's 1975 song 'Cortez the Killer' pictures Montezuma's realm before the conquest?

Neil Young cut it for the album Zuma; a blown circuit stopped the tape mid-take and lost a final verse, which Young shrugged off by saying he never liked that verse anyway.

The 2005 opera La Conquista by Lorenzo Ferrero has Montezuma's part written in which language?

Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica: the libretto is stitched together from indigenous and European writings on the conquest, each left in its original tongue.

Which city-state, long at war with Montezuma's empire, became Cortés's most faithful ally in 1519?

Tlaxcala fought Cortés at first and then joined him: it had held out against the Aztecs for generations, and its warriors, far outnumbering the Spaniards, marched with him on the capital.

What did Cortés have built and hauled overland in pieces to besiege Montezuma's island capital in 1521?

A fleet of warships: thirteen small brigantines were carried over the mountains in sections and launched on the lake with cannon aboard, which let Cortés cut the causeways and starve the city.

Which sight in the sky is among the Aztec omens of the Spaniards' arrival?

A comet blazing overhead is among them, along with a temple that burst into flames; the list was written down by a Spanish friar's Indigenous students decades after the conquest.

Which Spanish king brought Montezuma's grandson Diego Luis de Moctezuma to Spain?

Philip II had Diego Luis de Moctezuma brought to Spain, where he married a Spanish noblewoman; their son was made Count of Moctezuma, and the line survives as the Dukes of Moctezuma de Tultengo.

Among Sahagún's omens of the Spaniards' coming, what was heard in the city at night?

A weeping woman: her voice wailing through the night, the sixth sign on the friar's list, was taken as a warning that the city would be destroyed.

Montezuma's title, tlatoani, is usually rendered 'ruler', but what does the word literally mean?

One who speaks: tlatoani comes from the verb 'to speak', and Montezuma did not simply inherit the title, since a council of nobles elected him to it.

What killed Montezuma's brother and successor only months after he took power?

Smallpox, carried ashore with the Narváez expedition, reached the capital in 1520 and is thought to have killed the new tlatoani within months of his taking power.

Which German artist marvelled at Montezuma's treasures when they were displayed in Brussels in 1520?

Albrecht Dürer saw the first shipment of Montezuma's gifts to Cortés on display in Brussels in 1520 and wrote that nothing had ever so gladdened his heart.