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Don Pedro Aguilar, one of the earliest historians of Yucatan, states that six hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards the Mayas were the vassals of the Aztecs and were forced by them to construct remarkable edifices such as those found at Chi-chen Itza and Uxmal.

Herbert Spinden, in his admirable little book “Ancient Civilizations of Mexico,” has most happily drawn an analogy between the traits of the Mayas and Aztecs and the similar traits of the old Greeks and Romans. The Mayas were like the Greeks, the creative race, while the Aztecs were primarily warriors, as were the Romans.

Just what was the impulse which led these people to undertake the mighty works they accomplished,—whether it was religious fervor or plain fear,—we do not know. We do know that their age of greatest progress was within the era of verifiable history. We know that they built many large cities; and that there was a large population; Chi-chen Itza was a city of at least two hundred thousand inhabitants, and some archæologists believe that at one time its population numbered no less than a million.