Description

Menelik II was born Sahle Mariam on August 19, 1844, in Ankober, one of the capitals of the autonomous central Ethiopian province of Shoa. The infant boy was formally named by his paternal grandfather, Sahle Sellasie, who was the first Shoan leader to rise to become a negus, or king. The name, Menelik, recalls the legendary son of Solomon and the queen of Sheba who, according to Ethiopian tradition, was the first ruler of Ethiopia, and the one to whom the family traced its ancestry. The story is told that the old Shoan king foretold that the boy would one day be a great man who would rebuild the Ethiopian empire. That such a day would come, however, was anything but certain since Ethiopia was then beset by wars and rebellions and lacked any strong, centralized authority.