Moctezuma I

The first Moctezuma is the one who built the thing. His half-brother Tlacaelel held the office of Cihuacoatl beside him and the two of them together made the Triple Alliance into an empire — armies to the Gulf coast and down into Oaxaca, a tribute system, a reformed state cult, and a stone aqueduct bringing drinking water from Chapultepec across the lake, because a city on a salt lake has a water problem. His epithet, Ilhuicamina, means he shoots arrows at the sky, and his name-glyph shows exactly that.

Parentage

• Huitzilihuitl

Domains

• sovereignty

Relations

• sibling: Chimalpopoca
• half sibling: Tlacaelel

Sources

• Reference treatments of Moctezuma I, his conquests and his reign.