Hyarmendacil I was a mighty King, and his reign during the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Third Age saw Gondor grow into a huge and powerful kingdom, stretching east to the Sea of Rhûn, and south to Umbar. Hyarmendacil's immediate descendants were not so vigorous. His son Atanatar, and grandsons Narmacil and Calmacil, were content to live a life of ease in the splendour of Gondor's royal courts.
Fortunately, Hyarmendacil's great-grandson Minalcar inherited more of his forefather's strength of mind. Born in the last years of Hyarmendacil's long reign, Minalcar became active in matters political and military, to the extent that, not long after his uncle Narmacil became King, he handed effective control of the South-kingdom to his nephew. Minalcar took up the challenge, and managed to rebuild some of the power that Gondor had lost in the reigns of his grandfather Atanatar and uncle Narmacil. In particular, Gondor's eastern borders had become victim to Easterling incursions. Minalcar built a great army and wiped out the invaders from the lands west of the Sea of Rhûn.
It was from this event that he took the name Rómendacil 'Victor in the East'. After Narmacil's heirless death, and a brief reign by his own father Calmacil, Minalcar finally ascended the throne to take up the true Kingship of Gondor, to be known to history by the name Rómendacil II.
Notes
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The date of Minalcar's birth appears only in The History of Middle-earth volume XII, The Peoples of Middle-earth. It cannot therefore be considered completely reliable.
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