“In these temples and palaces, according to the old chroniclers, were immense treasures, rivaling those in the temples of Cuzco. The riches in the temple of the Sun were especially great, for ‘here,’ writes Garcilaso, ‘all the vassals of the Inca offered up much gold and silver and precious stones every year, as a token of gratitude to the Sun for the two acts of grace that had taken place on that spot. This temple had the same service as that of Cuzco. There was said to be such quantity of gold and silver heaped up in the island, besides what was worked for the use of the temple, that the stories of the Indians concerning it are more wonderful than credible. Father Blas Valera, one of the earliest Spanish chroniclers, says that the Indian colonists, called _Mitimaes_, who lived in Copocabana, declared that the quantity of gold and silver heaped up as offerings was so great that another temple might have been made of it, from the foundations to the roof, without using any other materials. But as soon as the Indians heard of the invasion of the country by the Spaniards, and that they were seizing all the treasure they could find, they threw the whole of it into the great lake.’”
Fortunately for Pizarro, at the time he made his appearance on the scene, it happened that these people were either still engaged in or had only just terminated a civil war that had been brought on by an attempt of Huascar, the then reigning Inca, to impose his will on his half-brother, Atahualpa, a rebellious vassal. It appears that Huascar’s father, the Inca Huayna Capac, having completed the subjugation of the Caras and their brave allies in Ecuador, had found it necessary to remain in Quito nearly all the rest of his life, to keep the inhabitants in subjection and suppress revolts that frequently occurred. As a political move, perhaps, he had married the daughter and heiress of the defeated Shiri and by her had had a son. This was Atahualpa. As he, too, had continued to live in Quito, he had come to be regarded rather as a scion of the ancient Shiri dynasty than as a prince of an alien conquering house.
And so when in 1525 Huayna Capac died, he left this northern kingdom to Atahualpa and only the southern to Huascar, his eldest son of the full Inca blood, born of his sister-wife; but, to preserve some sort of unity in the empire, he commanded that Huascar, as the only legitimate heir, should be paramount. Huascar, nevertheless, had declined to acquiesce in any such virtual division of dominions that he regarded as his by right of succession, and at the first opportunity had quarreled with Atahualpa and invaded the territory apportioned to him. In the battles that followed Atahualpa’s forces had been uniformly victorious, for, always superior in prowess to the now more effete soldiery that had defeated them in their former less organized state, years of Inca rule had taught these northerners how to make better avail of their energy and courage. Suffering enormous losses in every engagement, the forces of Huascar had been driven farther and farther south, until at last, in spite of reinforcements which, it is said, brought his army up to fully seventy thousand, he was beaten before the walls of his capital and made prisoner.