Here the adventurers were inflamed by golden stories of Montezuma,--a myth which befooled Cortez no more egregiously than it has befooled some modern historians, who seem unable to discriminate between what Cortez _heard_ and what he _found_. He was told that Montezuma--whose name is properly Moctezuma, or Motecuzoma, meaning "Our Angry Chief"--was "emperor" of Mexico, and that thirty "kings," called _caciques_, were his vassals; that he had incalculable wealth and absolute power, and dwelt in a blaze of gold and precious stones! Even some most charming historians have fallen into the sad blunder of accepting these impossible myths. Mexico never had but two emperors,--Augustin de Iturbide and the hapless Maximilian,--both in this present century; and Moctezuma was neither its emperor nor even its king. The social and political organization of the ancient Mexicans was exactly like that of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico at the present day,--a military democracy, with a mighty and complicated religious organization as its "power behind the throne." Moctezuma was merely Tlacatecutle, or head war-chief of the Nahuatl (the ancient Mexicans), and neither the supreme nor the only executive. Of just how little importance he really was may be gathered from his fate. Having founded Vera Cruz, Cortez caused himself to be elected governor and captain-general (the highest military rank)[6] of the new country; and having burned his ships, like the famous Greek commander, that there might be no retreat, he began his march into the grim wilderness before him.