[12] Lucan gives a fine enumeration of such prodigies witnessed in the Roman capital in a similar excitement. (Pharsalia, lib. 1, v. 523, et seq.) Poor human nature is much the same everywhere. Machiavelli has thought the subject worthy of a separate chapter in his Discourses. The philosopher even intimates a belief in the existence of beneficent intelligences who send these portents as a sort of _premonitories_, to warn mankind of the coming tempest. Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, lib. 1, cap. 56. [13] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 80.--Idem, Relaciones, MS.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, MS., lib. 12, cap. 3, 4.--Tezozomoc, Crón. Mexicana, MS., cap. 108. [14] Tezozomoc, Crón. Mexicana, MS., loc. cit.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 80. [15] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 39.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 27, ap. Barcia, tom. ii. [16] _Ante_, Book I, chap. 2, p. 44. [17] From the checkered figure of some of these colored cottons, Peter Martyr infers, the Indians were acquainted with chess! He notices a curious fabric made of the hair of animals, feathers, and cotton thread, interwoven together. “Plumas illas et concinnant inter cuniculorum villos interque gosampij stamina ordiuntur, et intexunt operose adeo, ut quo pacto id faciant non bene intellexerimus.” De Orbe Novo (Parisiis, 1587), dec. 5, cap. 10. [18] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 39.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 27, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 5, cap. 5.--Robertson cites Bernal Diaz as reckoning the value of the silver plate at 20,000 _pesos_, or about £5000. (History of America, vol. ii. note 75.) But Bernal Diaz speaks only of the value of the gold plate, which he estimates at 20,000 _pesos de oro_, different from the _pesos_, dollars, or ounces of silver, with which the historian confounds them. As the mention of the _peso de oro_ will often recur in these pages, it will be well to make the reader acquainted with its probable value. Nothing is more difficult than to ascertain the actual value of the currency of a distant age; so many circumstances occur to embarrass the calculation, besides the general depreciation of the precious metals, such as the adulteration of specific coins, and the like. Señor Clemencin, the Secretary of the Royal Academy of History, in the sixth volume of its _Memorias_, has computed with great accuracy the value of the different denominations of the Spanish currency at the close of the fifteenth century, the period just preceding that of the conquest of Mexico. He makes no mention of the _peso de oro_ in his tables. But he ascertains the precise value of the gold ducat, which will answer our purpose as well. (Memorias de la Real Academia de Historia (Madrid, 1821), tom. vi.