rigins of the Aztec Empire in a way unique to that culture, and those early times were hardly notable for the kind of glory which would later be emphasized in the Aztec culture:
The Aztecs, latecomers in the migration [to the north], lived miserably and marginally on the narrow tolerance of their longer-settled neighbors until the lord of Azcapotzalco allowed them to settle the swampy lands in the south=west of Lake Texcoco. . . . The Aztecs were to live essentially as mercenaries for the next difficult years, as their city and neat patchwork of chinampas slowly grew (Clendinnen 45).
Gradually, a hierarchy and social order were established, and the mercenaries, fighting for others and for pay, began to fight for their own cause, land and glory. This growing self-interest on the military side was accompanied by land and economic expansion, paralleling
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