With regard to the dispute between Sandoval and Holguin as to which could claim the honour of Quauhtemoctzin's capture, Cortes settled it for the present by observing, that a similar dispute once happened among the Romans between Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sylla, when the latter took king Jugurtha prisoner, who had fled for safety to the house of his father-in-law Bocchus. "When Sylla," said Cortes, "made his triumphal entry into Rome, he led Jugurtha by a chain, among his trophies of victory. This Marius considered Sylla had no right to do without asking his permission, he (Marius) being commander-in-chief, and Sylla having merely acted upon his orders; but as Sylla belonged to the order of the patricians, these declared in his favour, they being opposed to Marius, as a stranger of Arpinum, and a man who had risen from the lowest ranks, though he had been seven times consul. From this circumstance arose those civil wars between Marius and Sylla; but the question as to whom the honour of Jugurtha's capture was due was never decided."
After relating this circumstance, Cortes added, that he would lay the matter before the emperor for his imperial decision as to who could claim some memento of the monarch's capture in his armorial bearings. They would therefore have to await a decision on this point from Spain. This, indeed, arrived after the lapse of two years, by which Cortes was permitted to place a series of kings in his escutcheon; as, for instance, Motecusuma and Quauhtemoctzin, kings of Mexico, Cacamatzin of Tezcuco, the kings of Iztapalapan, Cojohuacan, and Tlacupa, and another powerful king, who was a relative of Motecusuma, and lord of Matlaltzinco and of other provinces, and was said to have the best claim to the throne of Mexico. I must now say something of the dead bodies