Menas of Ethiopia

Menas or Minas, throne name Admas Sagad I (Ge’ez: አድማስ ሰገድ, died 1563), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1559 until his death in 1563, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was a brother of Gelawdewos and the son of Emperor Dawit II. Early life According to a genealogy collected by James Bruce, Menas' father Lebna Dengel arranged Menas to be married to the daughter of Robel, governor of Bora and Selawe; upon becoming empress she took the name Adimas Moas. They had two children, Fiqtor and Theodora. During Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi's invasion of Ethiopia, Menas had been captured but treated well as a valuable prisoner. The typical fate of prisoners of war at the time was to be castrated and enslaved. This clemency came to an end in 1542, when the Imam, desperate for help from his fellow Muslims, included Menas in an assortment of extravagant gifts to the sultan of Yemen in return for military aid. However, Imam Ahmad's son was later captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Wayna Daga, Gelawdewos used his prisoner to recover his brother Menas; according to Pankhurst, "when the royal family was reunited there were many days of celebrations." Reign Menas was crowned emperor at Mengista Samayat, now called Mengisto, southwest of Debre Werq in Gojjam, and shortly afterwards he campaigned against the Beta israel in Semien province.