# Wise Capac — The Columbiad character guide

> Wise Capac in The Columbiad by Joel Barlow.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Capac

**First appearance:** 0004-book-i

## Snapshot

A wise Inca ruler whose counsel and sacred lineage place him among the patriarchs guiding the western world's ancient civilization.

## Who they are

Wise Capac belongs to the poem's gallery of American lawgivers, the Inca sovereign whose wisdom stands alongside Manco Capac's founding reign in the vision of the continent's past. He embodies the ordered, sun-reverencing civilization that the Spanish conquest will later destroy, giving the poem's indictment of avarice its deepest historical wound. His presence in the vision insists that the New World possessed its own emperors, laws, and gods long before Columbus unfurled an eastern banner over it.

## In the story

### [Book III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/chapters/book-iii)

The Inca king who defends his realm, sends Rocha on a peace embassy, leads the army, and shows mercy to the defeated.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters/wise_capac
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_columbiad_se/characters