Ahuitzotl had not as many virtues, or perhaps he had not a descendant to record them so effectively; but when he died in 1503, what there was heroic in his nature was commemorated in his likeness sculptured with others of his line on the cliff of Chapultepec.[846] To him succeeded that Montezuma, son of Axayacatl, with whom later this ancient history vanishes. When he came to power, the Aztec name was never significant of more lordly power, though the confederates had already had some reminders that conquest near home was easier than conquest far away. The policy of the last Aztec ruler was far from popular, and while he propitiated the higher ranks, he estranged the people. The hopes of the disaffected within and without Anáhuac were now centred in the Tlascalans, whose territory lay easterly towards the Gulf of Mexico, and who had thus far not felt the burden of Aztec oppression. Notwithstanding that their natural allies, the Cholulans, turned against the Tlascalans, the Aztec armies never succeeded in humbling them, as they did the Mistecs and the occupants of the region towards the Pacific. Eclipses, earthquakes, and famine soon succeeded one another, and the forebodings grew numerous. Hardly anything happened but the omens of disaster[847] were seen in it, and superstition began to do its work of enervation, while a breach between Montezuma and the Tezcucan chief was a bad augury. In this condition of things the Mexican king tried to buoy his hopes by further conquests; but widespread as these invasions were, Michoacan to the west, and Tlascala to the east, always kept their independence. The Zapotecs in Oajaca had at one time succumbed, but this was before the days of the last Montezuma.