Ready to carry the conquering eagles to another world

I was thoroughly prepared to hate Prescott.  I assumed that it was going to be another mundane example of the kind of nineteenth-century drivel that drove Charlotte Perkins Gilman into madness.  I was quite wrong.  Simply put, Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico is awesome.  Two scoops of awesome, in fact.

It is not awesome as a work of historical inquiry, but rather, as a work of storytelling.  Prescott masterfully crafts his narrative as a battle of wits between two powerful men, Cortes and Montezuma.  The figures receive strong character development – Cortes is a “youthful cavalier” (171) and Montezuma displays “energy and enterprise” (222) – as each marches fatuously to confront the other.

Prescott’s word-smithing, too, is brilliant and enviable.  Sentences such as “the golden visions of security and repose, in which he had so long indulged, the lordly sway descended from his ancestors, his broad imperial domain, were all to pass away” (384) inspire one to greatness (or elicit remorse that there are no more worlds to conquer).  But Prescott is also able to be playful with his language, frequently indulging in fascinating feats of alliteration, such as “it was fortunate for Cortes that Olmedo was not one of those frantic friars, who would have fanned his fiery temper …” (290).

But perhaps the most endearing quality of History of the Conquest of Mexico is its classicizing nature.  It is clear that Prescott received a classical education, and even that he might have an unhealthy addiction to things Roman (if such a thing is possible).  History of the Conquest of Mexico reads like a mixture of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico and Lucan’s Pharsalia.  Indeed, one might even posit that Prescott consciously intended to portray Cortes as a sixteenth-century Caesar, and Montezuma as a blend of Pompey and Vercingetorix (more of the latter, clearly).  Prescott opens with a line from Lucan describing Caesar as he prepared for battle, and, taken out of context, it appears apt for Cortes’s venture.  Elsewhere, Prescott engages in allusions to Caesar, describing the siege of Tenochtitlan in the manner that Caesar described the siege of Alesia, putting into the mouth of Cortes the orders of Lucan’s Caesar (207), and indeed modeling the opening description of Mexico on Caesar’s own description of Gaul.

Bravo.

Hoc opus, hic labor est, primo sine munere iungi.