ABSTRACT
When Emperor Seltân Çaguêd found himself lord of the empire, he at once very prudently sought to consolidate his position and shared the government of his lands among the captains whom he trusted. In three principal kingdoms, which are Amharâ, Begmêder and Tigrê, he placed three of his brothers, <[f. 445/434]> Emana Christôs, Afa Christôs and Cela Christôs, and in the kingdom of Gojâm he put a son-in-law of his named Iuliôs, a very great captain. And he himself remained in Dambiâ, which is almost in the middle. In this way he preserved and consolidated his emperorship at the beginning, or rather with Our Lord God helping and protecting him, as was clearly seen in many events, for otherwise his prudence and government would have been to little avail because, although his brother Emana Christôs and his son-in-law Iuliôs {[f. 489v]} helped him a great deal for a while, they later rose up against him and put him in such difficulties that, if Our Lord had not miraculously delivered him, it would seem that he could not humanly have escaped, as we saw above in his History and in chapters 4 and 5 of the second book. But leaving aside these two, of whom we have already spoken, and some captains who also rebelled, there were sixteen to eighteen who rose up against him in various places over a period of two years, all of them claiming the empire. But, because it would be a very long business to discuss them all, and they are mentioned in the emperor’s History that we referred to above, although not to the extent that the writer should have dealt with them, I shall only discuss some that gave him most trouble, much of which {affected} us.
