To return to the conquests of Axayacatl, this king completed the reduction of the Toluca valley, and reconquered the region of Cotaxtla which had revolted, so that his successor Tizoc, who seems also to have sent an expedition to the Mixtec country, was able to lay claim to an empire extending over the valleys of Toluca and the Rio de las Balsas, and the highlands of Mixteca, Huaxteca, Orizaba, Cotaxtla and Teotitlan. Axayacatl died in 1469, and Tizoc in 1482, and Auitzotl became the Aztec ruler. He continued the strenuous foreign policy of his predecessors, and proved a vigorous conqueror, though he was passionate and often cruel in administration. His armies conquered many cities in the Zapotec country, including Mitla (1494), Teozapotlan (1495) and Tehuantepec, and after seizing Tonala, the key to the country further south and east, pursued their victorious course through Soconusco, _via_ Mapaxtepec, Escuintla and Huiztla, as far as Huehuetlan. Other expeditions penetrated Chiapas, and even subdued certain cities in Guatemala. Probably however there was nothing like an effective occupation of the country beyond the city of Oaxaca, where a Mexican colony was established. In particular Chiapas can never be said to have been conquered. Still, in this reign the Aztec power reached its furthest extent, and the influence of Tenochtitlan was felt from the Panuco valley to northern Guatemala, and from Tuxpan to Acapulco. In the city itself Auitzotl completed the great pyramid-temple to Uitzilopochtli, the tribal god of the Aztec, which his predecessor had commenced, and also constructed an aqueduct which supplied water from Coyoacan. A severe inundation took place in his reign, and as he was escaping from the lower floor of a building which had become flooded, he struck his head against the lintel, causing an injury from which he eventually died. Montecuzoma, the second of that name, succeeded in the year 1502; Nezahualpilli was still ruling in Tezcoco, but Chimalpopoca of Tlacopan had died in 1489 and Totoquiuatzin the second was now the ruler there. Montecuzoma had been trained as a priest as well as a soldier, and though his military abilities enabled him to maintain the empire much in the same condition as he received it, he was particularly superstitious and amenable to sacerdotal influence. Abroad he quelled a rebellion among the Zapotec and Mixtec, and carried on operations in Soconusco and Vera Cruz. Nearer home he seized the opportunity of a quarrel between the Tlaxcalans and Uexotzinca to espouse the cause of the latter and to carry on a vigorous campaign against the former. For many years the Aztec had been able seriously to obstruct Tlaxcalan trade with the coast, so much so in fact that salt was a rarity in that province, but Montecuzoma made an energetic attack upon their territory. Undismayed, the Tlaxcalans fortified the approach to their dominions with a wall six miles long, and succeeded