ICONIO. - A city of Asia Minor, situated on a fertile plain at the foot of Mount Taurus and near a small lake. Originally it belonged to Phrygia (Xenophon, An., I, 2, 19), but administratively it was later incorporated into Lycaonia, of which it became an important capital (Strabo, XII, 6, 1). Traversed by the great commercial road leading directly to the “Cilician Gates” and connected by a transverse route with the Euphrates, it was always rich and prosperous and inhabited by a considerable number of Jews. Paul and Barnabas, on their first missionary journey, driven out from Antiochia (v.) of Pisidia, visited I. and preached in the Synagogue, converting many Jews and Greeks (Act. 14, 1-7). But in the face of the ever-increasing hostility of the Jews, they had to leave the city in order not to be stoned, and took refuge “in the cities of Lycaonia” (Act. 14, 6).
Although I. was the capital of Lycaonia, its inhabitants considered themselves ethnically Phrygian, and Luke adopts the common opinion. The principal events recounted in the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla are set at I. Today the city, which Claudius honored with the name Claudiconium and which was a Roman colony under Hadrian, is known by the name of Conia.