Iconium

“ The Jews, when travelling in heathen countries, took care, when they came to the borders of their own, to shake off the dust of their feet, lest any of the unhallowed ground should defile the sacred land of Israel.
Came unto Iconium - According to Strabo, Iconium was a small fortified town, the capital of Lycaonia, at present called Cogni. "Lycaonia was a province at the back of Pamphylia, higher up in Asia Minor, and to the northeast of Pamphylia." Pearce. ”

“ Cicero was there for several days previously to his Cilician campaign. Iconium will always be invested with much interest owing to St. Paul’s visits to it; the first of which was immediately after his expulsion from Antioch in Pisidia, when the Apostles “shook off the dust of their feet.” Messrs. Conybeare and Howson have well remarked, that the vast plain and the distant mountains are the most interesting features of modern Konieh ”

“ Strabo (vii. 3) has pointed out that “feminine influence” was a remarkable characteristic of the manners of Western Asia in his day, and of this we find the Jews availing themselves, on this occasion. Leaving Antioch, then, the Apostles turned nearly south-east to Iconium, which, as we have already stated, was, in those days, the chief town of the sub-district of Lycaonia. The treatment the Apostles received at Iconium was not very different from that they had experienced at Antioch. ”

“ But while the guards were forcing him to the door, the dexterous polemic had time to execute his design, by exclaiming, with a loud voice, “Such is the treatment, O emperor! which the King of heaven has prepared for those impious men, who affect to worship the Father, but refuse to acknowledge the equal majesty of his divine Son.” Theodosius immediately embraced the bishop of Iconium, and never forgot the important lesson, which he had received from this dramatic parable. ”

“ The name is not found in Herodotus, but Lycaonia is mentioned by Xenophon as traversed by Cyrus the younger on his march through Asia. That author describes Iconium as the last city of Phrygia; and in Acts xiv. 5 St Paul, after leaving Iconium, crossed the frontier and came to Lystra in Lycaonia. Ptolemy, on the other hand, includes Lycaonia as a part of the province of Cappadocia, with which it was associated by the Romans for administrative purposes; but the two countries are clearly distinguished both by Strabo and Xenophon and by authorities generally. ”

“ Entering this place of worship, they spoke with such effect, that a great number both of Greeks and Jews were thoroughly convinced of the truth of the Christian doctrine, and professed their faith in Jesus. But, as usual, there was in Iconium a great residue of bigoted adherents to the Mosaic faith, who could appreciate neither the true scope of the ancient dispensation, nor the perfection of gospel truth; and a set of these fellows undertook to make trouble for the apostles, in the same way that it had been done at the Pisidian Antioch. ”

“ Christ conquers!" and shouting to his followers, they fell on the Turks like lions; Barbarossa with his own hand sending many a one to his last sleep. Then they marched forward to Iconium, where rest and plenty awaited them, and where the old emperor doubtless found much cause for thankfulness when he threw himself into the arms of his brave son.
At Iconium the army stayed for some time, the soldiers being in sad need of repose ”

“ According to another version of the tale, this creation of mankind took place not at Panopeus, but at Iconium in Lycaonia. After the original race of mankind had been destroyed in the great flood of Deucalion, the Greek Noah, Zeus commanded Prometheus and Athena to create men afresh by moulding images out of clay, breathing the winds into them, and making them live. ”

“ Our numbers increased daily. When we went to Iconium, the beglerbeg of Caramania, Zulfekár Páshá, the357 governor, shut himself up in the fortress, and permitted the whole country-round to be plundered and ravaged, without once endeavouring to do any thing to save the property of the inhabitants. ”

“ The army now turned toward Iconium, which is the capital of Cilicia, and the chief residence of the sultan, and quickly took it [May 18, 1190] . It was a very populous city, well fortified with strong walls and high towers, and had in its midst an impregnable citadel. It was well supplied with victuals against a siege, while all the surrounding country was stripped of provisions, in order that when the emperor came he would not long be able to support an army there. But God overruled their efforts so that the outcome was just the opposite of what they sought. ”

“ They therefore repudiated (as Cyprian does in the epistle referred to) the term re-baptism, denying that they re-baptized anybody.↑ Namely the re-baptism (or, as they would say, the baptism) of those who had received baptism only at the hands of heretics standing without the communion of the Church.↑ Iconium was the principal city of Lycaonia, and Synnada a city of Phrygia. The synod of Iconium referred to here is mentioned also by Firmilian in his epistle to Cyprian, §§7 and 19 (Cypriani Ep. 74, al. 75) . ”

“ The Lycaonians appear to have been in early times to a great extent independent of the Persian empire, and were like their neighbours the Isaurians a wild and lawless race of freebooters; but their country was traversed by one of the great natural lines of high road through Asia Minor, from Sardis and Ephesus to the Cilician gates, and a few considerable towns grew up along or near this line. The most important was Iconium, in the most fertile spot in the country, of which it was always regarded by the Romans as the capital, although ethnologically it was Phrygian. ”

“ For the Isaurians also, a people who were accustomed to frequent alternations of peace, and of turbulence which threw everything into confusion with sudden outbreaks—impunity having fostered their growing audacity and encouraged it to evil—broke out in a formidable war. Being especially excited, as they gave out by this indignity, that some of their allies, having been taken prisoners, were in an unprecedented manner exposed to wild beasts, and in the games of the amphitheatre, at Iconium, a town of Pisidia. ”

“ After this no further mention is made of the Apostle. Thecla returns to Iconium, where she endeavors to convert her mother, but with no success. Taking up her abode in the cave where she first talked with Paul, she lives a virgin life and attains to a great age, doing many marvellous works and acquiring a great fame for sanctity.
This is a brief summary of the story which, whether it be fact or fancy, was devoutly believed by many of the earliest Fathers of the Church.
The Apostle to the Gentiles wrote: "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called." ”

“ I am one of the principal persons of Iconium, and was obliged to leave that city because I would not be married to Thamyris.
5 Then she laid hold on Alexander, tore his coat, and took his crown off his head, and made him appear ridiculous before all the people.
6 But Alexander, partly as he loved her, and partly being ashamed of what had been done, led her to the governor, and upon her confession of what she had done, he condemned her to be thrown among the beasts.
CHAPTER VIII. 2 Thecla entertained by Trifina; 3 brought out to the wild beasts; a she-lion licks her feet. ”

“ Iconium was the chief city of Lycaonia (see Acts xiii. and xiv.) , and Synnada was an important town in Phrygia Salutaris. These synods had been held some twenty-five years before (in A.D. 230) .
[97] Deut. xix. 14.
[98] See above, p. 53.
[99] A confession of faith has always been required before baptism: this Novatian virtually ignored by his action.
[100] Here as elsewhere Dionysius shows his breadth of view about God in recognizing that the Holy Spirit might in some measure remain even with the lapsed. ”

“ The historian informs us that his life was miraculously restored, and that he departed thence, and came to Derbe, and afterwards returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, where they had lately been so grievously persecuted. See [72] , [73] , [74] . These are the persecutions, etc., to which the apostle alludes; and we find that he mentions them here precisely in the same order in which, according to the relation of St. Luke, they occurred. Now it is said here that Timothy fully knew all these things ”

“ Turn now to the Roman Ionic, as developed in any one of the most familiar examples of it, in the Temple of Concord, near the Via Sacra, in the Theatre of Marcellus, or the Colosseum. What a contrast! How formal, mechanical, pattern-like it has become! The grace of its freedom, the intellectual reserve of its strength, the secret humanity that thrilled through all its lines, the divine Art which obtained such sweet repose there,—all these are gone. ”

“ Ionic capital. From the Erechtheium, Athens.
Ionic, Arch. One of the orders of Grecian architecture, distinguished principally by the ornaments of its Capital, which are spiral and are called Volutes, four in number. The Ionic Shaft is about nine diameters high, including the Base (which is half a diameter) and the Capital, to the bottom of the volute. The Pedestal is a little taller and more ornamented than the Doric. The Bases used are very various. The Attic base is very often used, and, with an astragal added above the upper torus, makes a beautiful and appropriate base for the Ionic. ”

“ The Romans, proud of their origin from Troy and Æneas, treated Ilium with signal munificence; not only granting to it immunity from tribute, but also adding to its domain the neighboring territories of Gergis, Rhœteium and Sigeium—and making the Ilieans masters of the whole coast [805] from the Peræa (or conti [p. 328] nental possessions) of Tenedos (southward of Sigeium) to the boundaries of Dardanus, which had its own title to legendary reverence as the special sovereignty of Æneas. ”

“ From the mountainous tract of Ida near these places, two arms, he says, extend to the sea, one in the direction of Rhœteium, the other of Sigeium, forming a semicircle, and terminate in the plain at the same distance from the sea as the present Ilium, which is situated between the extremities of the above-mentioned arms, whereas the ancient Ilium was situated at their commencement. This space comprises the Simoïsian plain through which the Simoeis runs, and the Scamandrian plain, watered by the Scamander. ”

“ We will speak first of the temples and the sculpture of Ionia. The Ionians were a people far more susceptible than were the Dorians to oriental influences. The dress, the art, the luxury of western Asia attracted them with irresistible force. We may suspect, as Brunn has suggested, that Ionian artists worked in the great Assyrian and Persian palaces, and that the reliefs which adorn the walls of those palaces were in part their handiwork. Some of the great temples of Ionia have been excavated in recent years, notably those of Apollo at Miletus, of Hera at Samos, and of Artemis at Ephesus. ”

“ There is perhaps no modern book of verse in which a certain melancholy phase of ancient thought is better reproduced than in Ionica, and this gives its slight verses their lasting charm. We have had numerous resuscitations of ancient manners and landscape in modern poetry since the days of Keats and André Chenier. Many of these have been so brilliantly successful that only pedantry would deny their value. But in Ionica something is given which the others have not known how to give, the murmur of antiquity, the sigh in the grass of meadows dedicated to Persephone. ”

“ The most numerous examples of the Ionic order of which remains exist are found in Asia Minor, but the most refined and complete is the Erechtheium at Athens (Figs. 72, 73) , a composite structure containing three temples built in juxtaposition, but differing from one another in scale, levels, dimensions, and treatment. The principal order from the Erechtheium (Fig. 71) shows a large amount of enrichment introduced with the most refined and severe taste. ”

“ Frederic Jacobs says, fancifully yet truly, that 'the language of Ionia resembles the smooth mirror of a broad and silent lake, from whose depth a serene sky, with its soft and sunny vault, and the varied nature along its smiling shores are reflected in transfigured beauty.' In Ionia, to borrow the expressions of the same eloquent writer, the mind of man 'enjoyed a life exempt from drudgery, among fair festivals and solemn assemblies, full of sensibility and frolic joy, innocent curiosity and childlike faith. ”

“ Actæon interpreted between the Romans and the Carthaginian chief.
"They are legates from Rome, coming to see you in the name of the Republic."
"Who are you, speaking to me in a voice that I seem to know?"
He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked keenly until he recognized the Greek.
"Is it you, Actæon? Always you, restless Athenian! I thought you were within the city, yet you have managed to slip away to bring these men to me. Well and good! Tell them it is too late. Why waste words? A chieftain who lays siege to a city only receives ambassadors after he is inside the walls." ”

“ They all were attentive to hear what thing the page would ask for, and Lucius her master said to her, "I do not beg my life, good lad, but I know that is what you will ask for." "No, no, alas!" said Imogen, "I have other work in hand, good master; your life I cannot ask for."
This seeming want of gratitude in the boy astonished the Roman general.
Imogen then fixing her eye on Iachimo, demanded no other boon than this, that Iachimo should be made to confess whence he had the ring he wore on his finger. ”