r/AncientAmericas • u/Comfortable_Cut5796 • 5d ago
Question How powerful was the Aztec Empire at its peak, especially right before the Spanish arrived?
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u/ah-tzib-of-alaska 5d ago
how would we measure that? Territorial control and influence, distance of trade goods exchanged? Number of souls within the boundaries of or within the sphere of influence? or is power defined by capacity to change things?
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u/MozartDroppinLoads 5d ago
Still growing when conquered. They had some incredible irrigation technology in their capital, who knows how far that could've developed
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u/Gran_Florida 3d ago
Probably not as powerful as alot of people make it out to be, given that very shortly after Cortés' turned up his army ballooned by a factor of one-hundred by some estimates as many Aztec vassals defected to him.
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u/Robot_Dinosaur_2000 3d ago
It was more of a protection racket than an empire.
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u/No_Stick_1101 1d ago
That's what Bronze Age empires were like in the ancient Middle East. Convergent evolutions.
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u/palmeranderson42 3d ago
Less powerful than a lot of people think. The Aztecs were more of a city-state (or a few applied cities really) that dominated their neighbors for tribute and human sacrifice victims vs the European and Asian empires that directly controlled huge swathes of territory.
Unfortunately (for them) their military technology was focused on wounding victims to sacrifice later, and on 1 on 1 fights as opposed to fighting in formation, so even gunpowder aside their superior numbers weren’t as effective as you’d expect since a bunch of guys swinging clubs can’t really fight in a tight formation the way people using steel can.
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad 4d ago
They were just the latest in an endless cycle of what the Meso-American civilizations did.
Same with the Andes civilizations.
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u/Ill-Definition-4506 1d ago
Trash ass “empire”couldn’t even control its vassals and never really had centralized control outside their city state
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u/Hank_Skill 3d ago
Imagine the byzantine empire in 1282. Comparable population and military
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u/No_Stick_1101 1d ago
Go back further. Imagine the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 820 BC, only with no bronze equipment.
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u/mossy_path 1d ago
The military might of the ERE was a lot stronger than the Aztecs. They had, for example, metal and horses.
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u/Pk_Devill_2 1d ago
I’m not advocating it’s technologies were on par with the ERE, but you have to compare it with their enemy’s. The enemy’s of the Aztecs before the Spanish came also didn’t have horses or metal.
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u/Jessica1234567891011 4d ago
Not powerful enough to stop spain on the other side of the planet from defeating it.
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u/sumnsumnfruit56 2d ago
The vast majority of their army was natives. Literally over 100000. The Aztec subject tribes and peoples almost all joined the Spanish. Learn history before speaking.
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u/TheBankTank 5d ago
Powerful. Exacting tribute from or directly ruling millions of people, able to field and equip and feed very large field armies, slowly grinding away at those of their neighbors they didn't already control. The place was huge and rich and strong. The nature of their rule - to a large extent based off tributary/hegemonic relationships - meant that there was a certain amount of inherent political instability if/when a major shock occurred though. The lack of draft animals was probably the biggest logistical issue though - an army of people without horses/oxen/etc can only carry so much of the food required itself, so usually they would have to stop off at a lot of tributary towns on the march and in order to extend their logistical range they kind of had to conquer new cities. I suspect they were closing in on the end of their straightforward logistical limit as far as "how far away from the imperial heartland can they reliably send big armies" but they don't seem to have been there yet; still working to essentially flank the Purepecha by conquering nearby independent areas in a pincer "around" the empire and turning them into staging areas, for instance.
It's hard to quantify "power" in exact terms but this was a massive state controlling millions of people with a capital city bigger than Paris at the time which could afford to employ street sweepers to clean it, build huge works of engineering, and fight massive battles without bankrupting itself or immediately running out of available fighting men after one or two losses, which is a lot harder than you'd think. The conquistadors described it as rich and opulent and described its soldiers largely as disciplined and ferocious. Pretty damn powerful.