Menas of Ethiopia

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Menas (Ge'ez ሜናስ mēnās), throne name Admas Sagad I (Ge'ez አድማስ ሰገድ admās sagad, Amh. ādmās seged, "to whom the horizon bows") was nəgusä nägäst (1559 - February 1, 1563) of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was a brother of Gelawdewos.

During Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi's invasion of Ethiopia, Menas had been captured but treated well as a valuable prisoner. Although the fate of prisoners of war at the time was to be castrated and enslaved, due to the intervention of Bati del Wambara, wife of Imam Ahmad Gragn, Menas escaped this mutilation, and was married to Bati del Wambara's daughter -- an act Whiteway describes as "a unique act of clemency."^[1] 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."^[2]

Following his elevation, he campaigned against the Falasha in Semien province.

He banished the Jesuit bishop Andre da Oviedo and his companions to a village between Axum and Adwa called Maigoga (Tigrinya may g^wag^wa, 'noisy water'), which the Jesuits optimistically renamed Fremona, after the missionary Frumentius.

About one year into his reign, Bahr negus Yeshaq rose in revolt in Tigray proclaiming Tazkaro, the illegitimate son of Emperor Menas' brother Yaqob as negus. This revolt occupied Menas attention for the remainder of his short reign. He marched into Lasta, at which point Yeshaq retreated into Shire. The emperor found him there and defeated Yeshaq, then turned south to Emfraz where he defeated the remaining supporters of Tazkaro on July 2, 1561.

Bahr Negash Yishaq then obtained the support of Özdemir, the Ottoman Pasha of Massawa, and proclaimed Tazkaro's infant brother, Marqos, nəgusä nägäst. Menas marched north again, but was defeated at Endarta by Yishaq; the Emperor fell back to Atronsa Maryam to regroup for another assault on the Bahr Negash. However, Menas came down with a fever during the march, and died at Kolo on February 1, 1563.

[edit] Notes

^ R.S. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543, 1902 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967), p. xxxiv.
^ Richard K. P. Pankhurst, The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles (Addis Ababa: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 72f.