Tom Holland

Our erstwhile producer, Theo Young-Smith, we could bring out his mummified body at Restors History events and parade it around on a litter.

I'm sure everyone would enjoy that.

It's lessons from history.

Yeah, completely.

So the Spanish thought that Cusco was brilliant.

Can I just ask, surely Cusco must be in a massive state though.

I mean, everyone's died of smallpox and there's been all this fighting and it's been occupied by people who hate it.

But here's the thing, clearly not, right?

Otherwise they would report on it.

Maybe Quisquis has not, you know, he hasn't raised it to the ground and the Northern army that has been occupying hasn't left a terrible mess.

I mean, I don't know why that is, but the sources would tell us, wouldn't they?

The Spanish, they would want to tell us.

Or maybe it's so outside the sense that the Spanish had of what a city should look like that it strikes them again like something from a romance.

Because that was a theme in Mexico, wasn't it?

Maybe.

Yeah.

Or maybe they, I mean, all the Spanish sources, of course, it's always in their interest to pick these things up because they want to attract more people and they want to impress the king.

Yeah.

So they write to Charles V, this city's the greatest ever seen in the Indies.

We can assure your majesty it's so beautiful and has such fine buildings it'd be remarkable even in Spain.