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130. Falsification of the latter was visited with severe punishment.

The judicial system at Mexico was elaborate and efficient; justice was administered by a hierarchy of special officials, at the head of whom stood the Ciuacoatl or Chief Justice. This office, however, appears to have had its military aspect, in so far as the holder acted as commander of the Mexican contingent when the confederate forces went out to battle. The Tlacatecatl also acted as a high judicial functionary. The judges were selected by the king and highest: officials from past students at the Calmecac, men of middle age full of experience and of unimpeachable integrity, who were "neither drunkards, nor amenable to bribes, nor liable to be influenced by favouritism nor passion." They received state maintenance, and if convicted of taking bribes or of delivering unjust sentences were punished with death. Each of the subject provinces maintained two judges at the three confederate towns, to whom the rulers assigned lands and service, and the ordinary courts opened in the morning, as soon as the judges had taken their seats at the mat-covered tribunal. Their midday meals were brought to them in court, and, after a short rest, they remained sitting until two hours before sunset. The high court sat in an apartment in the palace called Tlacxitlan, and dealt principally with high affairs of state and matters affecting the higher ranks, though it also pronounced sentences upon the cases sent up by the lower court. The latter, composed of representatives of the calpulli, also sat in the palace, in a room called Teccalli, and dealt with the affairs of the general public, sending its decisions to the Tlacxitlan for pronouncement of sentence. Important and difficult cases were reserved for a special court of thirteen judges headed by the ruler, which sat every eighty days. In the provinces there were a number of