And they did also march forward against the city of Teancum, and did drive the inhabitants forth out of her, and did take many prisoners both women and children, and did offer them up as sacrifices unto their idol gods. And it came to pass that in the three hundred and sixty and seventh years, [A. D.], the Nephites being angry because the Lamanites had scattered their women and their children, that they did go against the Lamanites with exceeding great anger, insomuch that they did beat again the Lamanites, and drive them out of their lands. [25] Later, referring to a second invasion of the Nephite lands, Mormon also says: And when they had come the second time, the Nephites were driven and slaughtered with an exceeding great slaughter; their women and their children were again sacrificed unto idols. [26] Some years later, Mormon, in an epistle to his son Moroni, speaking of the awful depravity which characterized both Nephites and Lamanites, says of them: "They thirst after blood and revenge continually." [27] Of the treatment of certain prisoners taken from one of the cities he also says: And the husbands and fathers of those women and children they have slain; and they feed the women upon the flesh of their husbands, and the children upon the flesh of their fathers; and no water, save a little, do they give unto them. [28] He describes how the Nephites defiled the daughters of Lamanite prisoners, and then continues: And after they had done this thing, they did murder them in a most cruel manner, torturing their bodies, even unto death; and after they have done this, they devour their flesh like unto wild beasts, because of the hardness of their hearts; and they do it for a token of bravery. [29] This, doubtless, was the beginning--in the later part of the fourth century A. D., "not early in the fourteenth century," as held by Prescott [30]--of those horrible human sacrifices and acts of cannibalism found among the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish invasion of Mexico, and which so shocked even the cruel Spaniards. Bancroft, in telling of the treatment of prisoners taken in war among the Aztecs, describes an unequal battle for life that was sometimes accorded the male prisoners, and then adds: