JJ-TX-08 - Tlaxcaltec Warriors

From time to time, Aztecs would arrange a Flower war when the need for human captives arose. In essence, these were ceremonial in nature, with all the details arranged beforehand by the leaders involved. Nevertheless, they were still a matter of life and death for the warriors; to be captured meant being sacrificed. While a sacrifice was considered an honorable death, no doubt most warriors would prefer to avoid it.
Whether a Flower war was arranged simply to satisfy religious demands for sacrificial victims, to train young warriors and to ensure social advancement for warriors or if it had underlying purposes of wearing down the enemy and terrorizing neighboring lands is still debated by scholars.
Some scholars maintain that the Flower wars were more like tournaments, with no more political purpose than to satisfy warriors in vying for advancement and provide ritual bloodletting and sacrifices. Other scholars see darker political aspects to these ritual wars: to demonstrate Aztec might, to wear down the enemy through attrition and to allow Aztec leaders to subjugate their own people through fear of losing loved ones.
The Aztecs had never managed to conquer the Tlaxcala. While the Tlaxcala were also Aztecs, they refused to pay tribute to the Triple Alliance. Montezuma might have thought that through the Flower wars, the Triple Alliance would be able to wear down the Tlaxcala and capture more of their warriors than they could afford to lose. If so, the Tlaxcala delivered the final blow: they allied with the Spanish in conquering and defeating the Aztec Empire.