ICONIUM (Greek Ίκόνιον), an ancient city of Asia Minor, now, under the name of Cogni, Konieh, Koniyeh, Konijah, or Konia, the capital of the Turkish vilayet of Caramania, is situated 310 miles east from Smyrna, at the entrance to an extensive and elevated plain which forms the centre of Asia Minor. To the eastward this plain stretches beyond the horizon, but the city is enclosed on other sides by a semicircle of snow-covered mountains. It lies at the foot of Mount Taurus, and the country immediately around it, watered by streams from the surrounding mountains, is occupiec∣ by fruitful gardens and orchards, forming an oasis in the midst of wide-stretching barrenness and desolation. The numerous richly adorned mosques, chapels, shrines, and monuments attest the former importance of the city when in the zenith of its power and prosperity, and lend additional brightness and picturesqueness to its appearance as seen from a distance; but on closer inspection the splendour is seen to be so intermixed with squalor and decay as to degenerate into tawdriness. Ancient walls about 2 miles in circumference surround the older part of the town, but one half of the inhabited portion is outside their boundaries. These walls were built by the Seljuk sultans in the 13th century of large square blocks of stone which have evidently formed part of more ancient edifices; and they are flanked by square towers richly adorned with cornices, demi-lions couchant, eagles with outspread wings, and Arabic inscriptions. The gateways are ornamented with alto-rilievos representing figures in procession. Great part of the space inside the walls is occupied by crumbling ruins of houses, and by dilapidated mosques half-buried in rubbish and overgrown by weeds. Of the ancient Greek city there are ...

the chief city of Lycaonia, in Asia Minor. An assault being meditated at the place by the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles upon the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, who, by preaching in the synagogue, had converted many Jews and Greeks, they fled to Lystra; where the designs of their enemies were put in execution, and St. Paul miraculously escaped with his life, Acts xiv. The church planted at this place by St. Paul continued to flourish, until, by the persecutions of the Saracens, and afterward of the Seljukian Turks, who made it the capital of one of their sultanies, it was nearly extinguished. But some Christians of the Greek and Armenian churches, with a Greek archbishop, are yet found in the suburbs of this city, who are not permitted to reside within the walls. Iconium is now called Cogni, and is still a considerable city; being the capital of the extensive province of Caramania, as it was formerly of Lycaonia, and the seat of a Turkish beglerberg, or viceroy. It is the place of chief strength and importance in the central parts of Asiatic Turkey, being surrounded by a strong wall of four miles in circumference; but, as is the case with most eastern cities, much of the enclosed space is waste. It is situated about a hundred and twenty miles inland from the Mediterranean, on the lake Trogilis. Mr. Kinneir says, Iconium, the capital of Lycaonia, is mentioned by Xenophon, and afterward by Cicero and Strabo; but does not appear to have been a place of any consideration until after the taking of Nice by the crusaders in 1099, when the Seljukian sultans of Roum chose it as their residence. These sultans rebuilt the walls, and embellished the city: they were, however, expelled in 1189 by Frederic Barbarossa, who took it by assault; but after his death they reëntered their ...