What does "excelled the exploits" mean in this context?

Question

Reading the epilogue to Book 10 of the First Decade written in 1511 by Peter Martyr D'Anghiera, I came across this passage:

Let us now return to the new countries, from which we have wandered. These countries are very numerous, diversified, and fertile; neither Saturn nor Hercules nor any hero of antiquity who set out for the discovery or conquest of unknown lands, excelled the exploits of our contemporary Spaniards.

I am having trouble determining whether "excelled the exploits of our contemporary Spaniards" paints the Spaniards in negative or positive light. Is he simply saying no one did a better job at conquering land than the Spaniards?

Answer 1

Is he simply saying no one did a better job at conquering land than the Spaniards?

Yes, yes he is. The word "excel" in this situation is being used in its "better than" sense. To quote the dictionary.com definition:

2: to surpass; be superior to; outdo:
He excels all other poets of his day.

So when D'Anghera says that "neither Saturn nor Hercules [...] excelled the exploits of our contemporary Spaniards", he is saying that neither Saturn not Hercules did better in discovering lands than the "contemporary Spaniards".

This passage was probably written in light of Christopher Columbus's landing on the Americas (and Amerigo Vespucci realizing that it was not, in fact, India), and the subsequent colonizing of the continent, although much of the land that they would eventually wrest from the hands of the natives hadn't been conquered yet - such as the destruction of the Aztec empire, which wouldn't happen until the end of that decade.