"*Because of their obsession with gold, the conquistadors are often dismissed as "gold crazy." In fact they were not so much gold crazy as status crazy. Like Hernan Cortes, who conquered Mexico, Pizarro was born into the lower fringes of the nobility and hoped by his exploits to earn titles, offices, and pensions from the Spanish crown. To obtain these royal favors, their expeditions had to bring something back for the king. Given the difficulty and expense of transportation, precious metals--"nonperishable, divisible, and compact," as historian Matthew Restall notes--were almost the only goods that they could plausibly ship to Europe. Inka gold and silver thus represented to the Spaniards the intoxicating prospect of social betterment."