The subjects of Quetzalcoatl, the Toltecs, were not less marvelously qualified. They knew the virtues of plants and could read the forecast of the stars; they could trace the veins of metals in the mountains, and discern the deposits of precious stones by the fine vapor which they emit; they were orators, poets and magicians; so swift were they that they could at once be in the place they wished to reach; as artisans their skill was unmatched, and they were not subject to the attacks of disease. The failure and end of all this goodly time came about by a battle of the gods, by a contest between Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli on the one hand, and Quetzalcoatl on the other. Quetzalcoatl refused to make the sacrifices of human beings as required by Huitzilopochtli, and the latter, with Tezcatlipoca, set about the destruction of Tula and its people. This was the chosen theme of the later Aztec bards. What the siege of Troy was to the Grecian poets, the fall of Tula was to the singers and story-tellers of Anahuac—an inexhaustible field for imagination, for glorification, for lamentation. It was placed in the remote past—according to Sahagun, perhaps the best authority, about the year 319 before Christ.[121] All arts and sciences, all knowledge and culture, were ascribed to this wonderful mythical people; and wherever the natives were asked concerning the origin of ancient and unknown structures, they would reply; “The Toltecs built them.”[122] They fixedly believed that some day the immortal Quetzalcoatl would appear in another avatar, and would bring again to the fields of Mexico the exuberant fertility of Tula, the peace and happiness of his former reign, and that the departed glories of the past should surround anew the homes of his votaries.[123]