A Desolation Called Peace

First, reality was suspended. All breaches to Inca protocol occurred at once: the rules governing personal contact (visual, oral, and corporal), drinking, and eating were broken. When Ciquinchara first met the conquerors he was allowed to do what no Indian could, and now the tables were turned. Since there was no signifying context to frame their interactions, the actors exposed themselves to limitless risk. Atahualpa could have been slaughtered, or Soto and Hernando poisoned.…

—Gonzolo Lamana, in “Beyond Exoticization and Likeness: Alterity and the Production of Sense in a Colonial Encounter,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 47, no. 1 (2005): 4–39

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles—this they name empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

—Tacitus (quoting Calgacus), Agricola 30