earth; and after this fellows the fourth and last age of the world, which has to end by the violence of fire, and thus they null it Tletonatiuh which is to say sun of fire.
Certain discrepancies with respect to the order of the suns will be noted, which is different in Veytia, in Ixtlilxóchitl, and in the stone; on the other hand, this (the stone) agrees in the said particular with the “anonymous Codex of Gama” or Chimalpopoca. There also appears an error of 104 years (a native century) in the accounts of the Texcocan historian, and other divergences are not lacking. This is inevitable in treating of so remote events, necessarily vague in their nature. But there is a fundamental accord in the data which cannot be denied; in any event, the relief is the unimpeachable authority to which in the last instance we must attend.
The Toltecs believed, as we have shown, that they lived in the third age of the world, as Boturini and Veytia suppose, or at the beginning of the fourth, as is stated by Ixtlilxóchitl. Their traditions told them that each one of the anterior ages had lasted a definite number of fixed periods of 416 years: the first 1,664—or a bundle more, according to the data of the Texcoco chronicler, apparently in error by 52 years in this account; the second the same length. They found themselves at the end of the third, and held it finished at the expiration of four new cycles of 416 years each. Here indeed Ixtlilxóchitl appears exact, stating definitely the date 4992, which are 12 great periods or 48 Indian centuries. Then occurred the destruction of many of the autochthonous inhabitants of the plateau as the result of a catastrophe (apparently volcanic eruptions) whose last manifestations the Toltecs themselves witnessed; one huehuetiliztli separates this event from the consolidation of the monarchy of Tula.
Clavijero, who places the arrival of the people in the year 596 A.D., indirectly confirms the thesis, since from then to 700 there passed just one native century. Torquemada also speaks of their wandering for 104 years. Clavijero admits the same date, 596 A.D., although he refers it to the beginning of the peregrination. Buschmann also states it.
They let these years go by then in consolidating themselves or in wandering, and in the year 5097, Ce técpatl, which was 700, they initiated the fourth age of the world. Chavero claims that they then elected their first monarch; Boturini, Game, and the majority of authorities agree that the Toltec chronology began with Ce técpatl. There are those who place the event at the year 713 and even 719 and
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