The Talmud relates that once, when the high priest was being escorted home from the Temple by the people, at the close of a Day of Atonement, the crowd deserted him upon the approach of Abtalion and Shemaiah and followed them.
He and his colleague Abtalion are termed the gedolei ha-dor (the great men of the age)[6] and darshanim (exegetes).
When Herod on his own responsibility had put to death the leader of the national party in Galilee, Hyrcanus II, he permitted the Sanhedrin to cite him before the tribunal.
Only Shemaiah was brave enough to say: "He who is summoned here on a capital charge appears like one who would order us to execution straightway if we should pronounce him guilty.
According to Josephus, he led the Sanhedrin during the transition period between the Hasmonean dynasty and the rise of King Herod the Great.