Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/809

Rh S H E S H E 783 at the mouth of the river of the same name, 43 miles east of Fond du Lac and 52 miles north of Milwaukee. It pos- sesses a good harbour, and, beiug surrounded by very productive agricultural land, exports annually a large quantity of grain. The manufactures include farming implements, enamelled hollow-ware, and stone-ware ; there are a number of tanneries and. breweries; and mineral water is exported. Settled in 1836, the city had in 1880 a population of 7314. SHECHEM, now NABULUS, a city of Palestine. Eleven hours from Jerusalem on the great north road the traveller finds himself in the broad upland plain of Makhna (1500 feet above the sea), with Mount Gerizim on his left, and, skirting the base of the mountain, reaches the traditional well of Jacob (John iv. 5, 6 ; cf. Gen. xxxiii. 19), a deep cistern with the ruins of an old church beside it. Here the road divides : the caravan route to Damascus continues northward by the village of 'Asker (Sychar of John iv. 5?), and so to Beisan (Beth-shan) and Tiberias; but the way to Samaria turns westward into a fertile and well- watered side valley between Gerizim (2849 feet) on the south and Ebal (3077 feet) on the north. This is the Vale of Shechem or Nabulus ; it is in fact an easy pass between the Mediterranean and Jordan basins, and at the watershed (1870 feet), where the city stands, 1^ miles from Jacob's Well, is not more than 100 yards wide. Thus Shechem commands both branches of the great north road, and several routes from the coast also converge here and connect with the ancient road from Shechem eastward to Kerawa (Archelais) and Al-Salt, the capital of the Belka. The name of Shechem (shoulder, back) accords with the position of the town on the watershed, and the native name in Josephus's time (Mabortha, E. /., iv. 8. 1 ; Pliny has Mamortha) means simply " the pass." The situation of Shechem at the crossing of so many great roads must have given it importance at a very early date, and it is still a busy town of 20,000 inhabitants, with soap manu- factures and considerable trade. On the other hand, the position is equally favourable for brigandage, to which, under weak governments, the Shechemites were addicted of old (Judges ix. 25; Hosea vi. 9, where "for consent" read " to Shechem "), and the district is still a law- less one. The ancient inhabitants of Shechem were the Bne Hamor, a Canaanite clan, who were not expelled on the first conquest of Canaan but remained in possession till the events recorded in Judges ix. From the narrative of Gen. xxxiv., which has been spoken of in the article LEVI, it would seem that they entered into friendly relations with the invaders, and that an attack made on them by Simeon and Levi was repudiated by Israel and led to the dispersion of these two tribes. In Judges ix. the "freemen of Shechem " (ftyy i^JH) appear as a turbulent but cowardly race, who, in spite of their numbers and wealth, had become vassals of Gideon for the sake of protection against the Midianites, and would have continued to serve his sons but for the enterprise of Abimelech, whose mother was of their race. With the aid of mercenaries hired with the treasure of the sanctuary of Baal-Berith or El-Berith, the god of the town, Abimelech destroyed the sons of Gideon, was crowned king of Shechem, and for three years held sway also over the surrounding Israelites. A revolt was led by Gaal, an Israelite who scorned to be subject to the creature of the despised Canaanites, 1 and, the Shechemites having fallen out with Abimelech about their practice of brigandage, Gaal made a dash at the city in the absence of the king, and the fickle inhabitants received him with open arms. Abimelech, however, with his mercenaries proved too strong for his adversaries, and Canaanite Sheehem was utterly destroyed. Its place was taken by a Hebrew city, and the Canaanite sanctuary of El-Berith was transformed into 1 In Judges ix. 28 for mjJ read W31P (Wellliausen after MSS. of LXX. ), and translate " Who is Abimelech or who are the Shechemites (his supporters) that we should be his slaves ? By all means let the son of Jerubbaal and Zebul his officer enslave the men of Hamor father of Shechem; but why should we (Hebrews) be his slaves?" These words cannot have been spoken after the Shechemites had renounced Abimelech ; w. 29, 30 ought to stand immediately after ver. 22. See W. R. Smith, in Theol. Tijdschrtft, 1886, p. 195 sq. a Hebrew holy place of El the God of Israel, of which the founda- tion was afterwards referred to Jacob (Gen. xxxiii. 20) or even to Abraham (Gen. xii. 7). The great stone under the famous sacred tree at the sanctuary (the "tree of the revealer" or "tree of the soothsayers," E.V. " plain of Moreh " or "of Meonenim" ; Gen: xii. 6, xxxv. 4 ; 2 Deut. xi. 30; Jud. ix. 6, 37) was said to have been set up by Joshua (Josh. xxiv. 26), and Joseph's grave was shown there. 3 All this indicates that Shechem was once the chief sanctuary of Joseph, and so we understand why Rehoboam went to Shechem to be crowned king of Northern Israel and why Jeroboam at first made it his residence (1 Kings xii. 25). Politically Shechem was soon supplanted by Tirzah and Samaria, but it appears to have been still a sanctuary in the time of Hosea. It survived the fall of Ephraim (Jer. xii. 5) and ultimately became the religious centre of the SAMARITANS (g.v.). The Greek name Neapolis, known to Josephus, indicates the building of a new town, which, according to Eusebius and Jerome, was a little way from the old Shechem, or at least did not include the traditional holy sites. The coins give the form Flavia Neapolis. Neapolis was the birth- place of Justin Martyr, and became the seat of a bishopric. Five Christian churches destroyed by the Samaritans in the time of Anastasius were rebuilt by Justinian (Procop., De ^Ed., v. 7). Remains of one of these seem still to exist in the crusaders' church of the Passion and Resurrection (1167), now the great mosque. Neapolis had much to suffer in the crusades ; it was finally lost to the Christians soon after Saladin's great victory at Hittin. A map of the Shechem valley, with topographical 'details, &c., will be found in the Memoirs of Pal. Expl. Soc. , vol. ii. SHEE, SIR MARTIN ARCHER (1770-1850), portrait- painter, and president of the Royal Academy, was born in Dublin on the 23d of December 1770. He was sprung from an old Irish family, and his father, while he exercised the trade of a merchant, regarded the profession of a painter as in no sense a fit occupation for a descendant of the Shees. Young Shee became, nevertheless, a student of art in the Dublin Society, and came early to London, where he was, in 1788, introduced by Burke to Reynolds, by whose advice he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1789 he exhibited his first two pictures, the Head of an Old Man and Portrait of a Gentleman. During the next ten years he steadily increased in practice, and gradually gained ground among the aristocracy, with whom his suavity and good manners were great recom- mendations. He was chosen an associate of the Royal Academy in 1798, shortly after the illustrious Flaxman, and in 1800 he was made a Royal Academician. In the former year he had married, removed to Romney's house in Cavendish Square, and set up as the legitimate successor of that artist. Shee continued to paint with great readiness of hand and fertility of invention, although his portraits were eclipsed by more than one of his contem- poraries, and especially by Lawrence, Hoppner, Phillips, Jackson, and Raeburn. In addition to his portraits he executed various subjects and historical works, such as Lavinia, Belisarius, his diploma picture Prospero and Miranda, and the Daughter of Jephthah. In 1805 he published a poem consisting of Rhymes on Art, and it was succeeded by a second part in 1809. Although Byron spoke well of it in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and invoked a place for " Shee and genius " in the temple of fame, yet, as nature had not originally conjoined these two, it is to be feared that even a poet's invocation could not materially affect their relations. Shee published another small volume of verses in 1814, entitled The Commemoration of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other Poems, but this effort did not greatly increase his fame. He now produced a tragedy called Alasco, of which the scene was laid in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, 8 Eusebius gives the tree (terebinthus) of Gen. xxxv. 4 a place in his Onomasticon ; and from it probably the bishop Terebinthius in Procop., De JEd., v. 7, had his name. 3 The Canaanite sanctuary was represented as a mere temporary usurpation by the tradition (in the Elohistic narrative) that Jacob had bought the site of his altar from the Hamorites and bequeathed it to Joseph (Gen. xxxiii. 19, Josh. xxiv. 32 ; in the latter passage read with LXX. FI3IV1 for Vm).