{Hisf. Nal. V, 13), Josephus (ihid.) calls it NeapoKs (NfHTToXic, " New Town"), from its having been rebuilt by Vespasian after the Roman war in Palestine; and this name is found on coins still extant (Enckel, iJoiir. Num. iii, 433). See Nkapolis. This last name it has still retained in the Arab Nablus, and is one of the very few instances throughout the country where the com- paratively modern name has supplanted the original.
Coin of Neapolis in Palestine.
II. Locatinn. — The scriptural indications of its local- ity are not numerous. Joshua places it in Blount Ephra- im (xx, 7; see also 1 Kings xii. 25). Sliiloh was "on the east side of the highway that goeth u]i from Bethel to Shechem" (Judg. xxi, 19); hence Shechem must have been farther north than Shiloh. In the story of Jotham it is more precisely located under Mount (ieri- zim (ix, 7); which corresjionds with the more full and exact description of ,)osephus, who places it between Gerizim and Ebal (Ant. iv, 8, 44). Further, Shechem, as we learn from Joseph's history (Gen. xxxvii, 12, etc.), must have been near Dothaii ; and, assuming Do- than to be the place of that name a few miles north- east of Nablus, Shechem must have been among the same mountains, not far distant. So, too, as the Sychar in John iv, 5 was probably the ancient Shechem, that town must have been near Mount Gerizim, to which the Samaritan woman pointed or glanced as she stood by the well at its foot. The collateral evidences in suji- port of this opinion we may briefly state. 1. The city is not built on an elevated position, as almost all the towns of Palestine are, but at the foot of (ierizim and along the valley, indicating a date anterior to the war- like and unsettled state of the country which led the inhabitants to select a more secure and defensive site for their towns; as also the unwillingness of the peo]ile through future generations to change the site of their ancient and renowned city. 2. The advantage which it affords of a good supply of running water — a most important consideration in that climate especially. No spot in this favored locality has such an abundance as the city itself 3. The road which has connected the valley with the summit of iMount Gerizim through all past ages is the one ascending behind the [iresent town. It is true that there is another path leading up from the valley about half-way between the city and the east end of the valley; but this has never been more than a kind of by-path, used by few except shepherds. 4. The antiquities in and around the city. These are neither numerous nor important in themselves, but as evidence on the subject in question they are of considerable value. They consist of portions of walls, cisterns, fragments of potteries, and such like, all of early date, an<l some evi- dently of Hebrew origin. These being either within the walls of the present city, or in its immediate vicin- ity, and none to be met with in any other part of the valley, seem to be a jirctty conclusive |)roof that the present site is the original one. 5. The narrative of Jotham's parable to the people of Shechem clearly in- dicates the same spot (Judg. ix, 7-21). He would have stood on one of those large projections of Gerizim that overlook the city; and in no other spot in the valley would the whole story tally so well. Josephus, in re- lating .Jotham's exjiloit. confirms this beyond all dispute. His words are that Jotham went up to Jlount (ierizim, which overhangs the city Shechem {Aiif. v, 7, 2). We may remark that Josephus usually retains the old name Shechem when speaking of the city, but occasionally adopts the new name, Neapolis ( War, iv, 8, 1) ; and
SHECHEM
631
SIIECHEM
thus clearly i<lentifies Shechem with Nablus. This was certainly the Jewish opinion, as we read in Mid- rash Rabbah that " Shechem in Mount Ephraim is Na- puhs." So, also, the early Christians Epiplianiiis {Ailr. Ila-r. iii, 1055) and Jerome (J'Jpit. Pii/da'), The only ancient am hor that makes a distinction between She- chem and Nablus is Eusebius, if indeed he means to as- sert the fact, which seems doubtful from his mode of expression (Oiioimisf. s. v. Ttps/iu'^of, 2(>\'f;[i). But his contemporary, the Bordeaux I'ilyrim, wiio visited the [)lace in A.D. 333, not only identities the two, but also never calls the city by its new name, Neapolis, but only its ancient name, Sychem ; and most likely he thus only expressed the g'eneral and probably universal opin- ion that then prevailed among both Jews and Chris- tians.
The ancient town, in its most flourishing; a,£;e, may have tilled a wider circuit than its modern representa- tive. It could easily have extended farther up the side of Gerizim, and eastward nearer to the opening into the valley from the [ilain. But any great change in this respect, certainly the idea of an altogether different position, the natural conditions of the locality render doubtful. That the suburbs of the town, in the age of Christ, approached nearer than at present to the en- trance into the valley between (Jerizim and Ebal may be inferred from the implied vicinity of Jacob's well to Sycliar in John's narrative (iv, 1 sij. ). The impression made there on the reader is that the people ct)uld be reailily seen as they came forth from the town to repair to Jesus at the well; whereas Nablus is more than a mile distant, and not visible from that point. The present inhabitants have a belief or tradition that She- chem occupied a portion of the valley on the east be- yond the limits of the modern town; and certain trav- ellers speak of ruins there, which they regard as evi- dence of the same fact. The statement of Eusebius that Sychar lay east of Neapolis may be explained by the circumstance that the part of Neapolis in that quar- ter had fallen into such a state of ruin when he lived as to be mistaken for the site of a separate town (see Re- land, PuliKst. p. 1004). The portion of the town on the edge of the plain was more exposed than that in the recess of the valley, and, in the natural course of things, would be destroyed first, or be left to desertion and de- cay. Josephus says that more than ten thousand Sa- maritans (inhabitants of Shechem are meant) were de- stroyed by the Romans on one occasion ( War, iii, 7, 32). The population, therefore, must have been much greater than Nablus, with its present dimensions, would contain.