Pioneer Spaniards in North America . gaining ground with each gen-eration in the direction of knowing how to they acquired a growing interest in a settledlife, they learned much from those whom theyhad dispossessed. History tells us of more thanone conquering people who acquired the arts oflife from the vanquished race. The rude barba-rians who burst into the splendid Roman empire,overran its fruitful plains, and sacked its opulentcities, in many instances learned the arts of thesubject people, became permanent settlers, andbuilt up a new civilization on the ruins of thatwhich they had
Pioneer Spaniards in North America . gaining ground with each gen-eration in the direction of knowing how to they acquired a growing interest in a settledlife, they learned much from those whom theyhad dispossessed. History tells us of more thanone conquering people who acquired the arts oflife from the vanquished race. The rude barba-rians who burst into the splendid Roman empire,overran its fruitful plains, and sacked its opulentcities, in many instances learned the arts of thesubject people, became permanent settlers, andbuilt up a new civilization on the ruins of thatwhich they had destroyed. One of the finestregions of Europe still bears the traces of this 33^ THE STORY OF ANCIENT MEXICO transformation. The name Lombardy carries usback to the time when a horde of wild, beardedwarriors (Lombards, or Longobarten, that is,Longbeards) overran the fertile valleys of north-ern Italy and began a marvelous career ofcivilization. How long these new-comers into what we callMexico had been on American soil before they. THE FAMOUS DIGHTON ROCK reached the region where history finds them, wehave no means of knowing. Quite likely, hun-dreds of years had passed in the slow process bywhich they had gradually drifted or been pushedsouthward. In the opinion of some writers, theywere the builders of the earliest mounds,^ andthese were partly defensive structures which theyreared in order to protect themselves against theattacks of warlik-e neighbors. The mounds were, 1 See p. 95. 337 APPENDIX then, an expression of the same tendency tobuild, both for defence and for religious purposes,which afterwards showed itself so markedly inthe lands of their adoption, Mexico and CentralAmerica. After the immigrants had become settled intheir new home, one tribe, as we have seen, be-came especially noted in the march of were the Toltecs, renowned city of Tollan was made up of massivestone structures, which stood long after its inhab-itants had wandered o
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