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The Aztecs had a difficult time establishing themselves in the valley. The people living in the city-states thought the Aztecs were crude barbarians. But the Aztecs were fierce warriors, and the city-states were willing to employ them as mercenaries.

After they settled in the valley, the legacy of the Teotihuacáns and the Toltecs began to influence the Aztecs. They made pilgrimages to the ancient ruins of Teotihuacán. They adopted Quetzalcoatl (ket-sahl-koh-AHT-l), the Teotihuacáns' feathered serpent god, as one of their own gods.

The Aztecs thought even more highly of the Toltecs, as rulers of a golden age. Aztec rulers married into the surviving Toltec royal line. The Aztecs even began to claim the Toltecs as their own ancestors.

In 1319, stronger groups forced the Aztecs to move away from Chapultepec (chuh-PUHL-teh-pek), a rocky hill where they had made their home. The Aztecs fled to the south, where they became mercenaries for the city-state of Culhuacán. But trouble came again when the Aztecs sacrificed the daughter of the Culhua chief. This led to a war with the Culhuas, who drove the Aztecs onto an island in the shallow waters of Lake Texcoco.

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From about 100 to 650 C.E., the Valley of Mexico was dominated by the Teotihuacáns. These people built an enormous capital city, Teotihuacán. One of the city's buildings, the Pyramid of the Sun, was more than two hundred feet high.After Teotihuacán's collapse around the 700s, a group from the north, the Toltecs migrated into the valley. Toltec civilization reached its height in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Toltecs built a number of cities. Their capital, Toll boasted large pyramids topped with temples.As the Aztecs' power grew, their capital city of Tenochtitlán developed into one of the largest cities in the world. When Spanish explorers first arrived at Tenochtitlán in 1519, they were amazed to see a majestic city crisscrossed by canals and boasting impressive temples and palaces. With a huge population for the time, of between 200,000 and 300,000 people, Tenochtitlán was larger than London, Paris, or Venice.

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The Aztec Empire arose in the Valley of Mexico, a fertile area nearly eight thousand feet above sea level. By the time the Aztecs arrived, in the mid-1200s C.E., the valley had been a center of civilization for more than a thousand years. Unlike other empire builders, the Aztecs did not start colonies. Nor did they force conformity on their subjects.Instead, the Aztec Empire was a loose union of hundreds of city-states that had to pay tribute to the Aztecs.
Collecting tribute was the empire's most vital business. The Aztecs relied on tribute to support Tenochtitlan's huge population. Tribute took the form of whatever valuable items a city could provide. Cities might pay in food, cacao, gems, cotton, cloth, animals, animal skins, shells, building materials, or even soldiers. Tax collectors stationed around the empire made sure that cities paid regularly.