ICONIUM. – A city of Asia Minor, in 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). Crossed 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 good number of Jews. Paul and Barnabas, on their first missionary journey, having been driven out of Antioch (v.) of Pisidia, visited I. and preached in the synagogue, converting many Jews and Greeks (Acts 14:1-7). But faced with the ever-growing hostility of the Jews, they had to leave the city to avoid being stoned and took refuge “in the cities of Lycaonia” (Acts 14:6).
Although I. was the capital of Lycaonia, ethnically its inhabitants considered themselves Phrygians, and Luke adopts the common opinion. In I. are placed the principal events recounted in the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. Today the city, which Claudius honored with the name of Claudiconium and which was a Roman colony under Hadrian, is known by the name of Konya.