Menelik's Expansions, also known as the Agar Maqnat (Amharic: 'Cultivation' of land), was a series of wars and conquests carried out by Menelik II of Shewa to expand the Ethiopian Empire. In 1866 Menelik II became the king of Shewa and in 1878 began a series of wars to conquer land for the Ethiopian Empire and to increase Shewan supremacy within Ethiopia. Menelik II sought to build a "greater Ethiopia" and to incorporate lands from the era of Amda Seyon I, prior to the Ethiopian–Adal War and Oromo migrations. He is viewed as the founder of modern Ethiopia.