Laconia

Acts 14: The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.
The entire region was idolatrous. The idols which were worshipped there were those which were worshipped throughout Greece. Many of their idols were heroes, whom they worshipped after they were dead. It was common among them to suppose that the idols appeared to men in human form. The poems are filled with accounts of such appearances; and the only way in which they supposed the idols to take knowledge of human affairs, and to aid men, was by their personally appearing in this form.
And they called Barnabas, Jupiter - Jupiter was represented as the most powerful of all the idols of the ancients. He was represented as the son of Saturn and Ops, and was educated in a cave on Mount Ida, in the island of Crete. The worship of Jupiter was almost universal. He was the Ammon of Africa, the Belus of Babylon, and the Osiris of Egypt. His common appellation was, the father of idols and men. He was usually represented as sitting upon a golden or an ivory throne, holding in one hand a thunderbolt, and in the other a sceptre of cypress. His power was supposed to extend over other idols; and everything was subservient to his will, except the fates. There is the most abundant proof that he was worshipped in the region of Lycaonia, and throughout Asia Minor. There was, besides, a fable among the inhabitants of Lycaonia that Jupiter and Mercury had once visited that place, and had been received by Philemon.
And Paul, Mercarius - Mercury, called by the Greeks Hermes, was a celebrated idol of antiquity. No less than five of this name is mentioned by Cicero. The most celebrated was the son of Jupiter and Msia. He was the messenger of the idols, and of Jupiter in particular; he was the patron of travelers and shepherds; he conducted the souls of the dead into the infernal regions; and he presided over orators, and declaimers, and merchants; and he was also the idol of thieves, pickpockets, and all dishonest persons. He was regarded as the idol of expressiveness and as light, rapid, and quick in his movements. The conjecture of Chrysostom is, that Barnabas was a large, athletic man, and was hence taken for Jupiter; and Paul was small in his person, and was hence supposed to be Mercury.
In the city of Jupiter the image of Jupiter stood in front near the gates, for the city was under the protection of their idol.
They brought two oxen, one to be sacrificed to each (Barnabas and Paul). It was common to sacrifice bullocks to Jupiter. The victims of sacrifice were usually decorated with ribands and chaplets of flowers. The gates of the city, where were the images or temple of the idols.
Lystra , ancient city of Lycaonia, S Asia Minor the modern Konya, Turkey.
22…..continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation
That it is fit or proper that we should. Not that it is in itself fixed by any fatal necessity; but that such is the nature of religion, and such the wickedness and opposition of the world, that it will happen. We are not to expect that it will be otherwise. We are to calculate on it when we become Believers.
It is necessary to wean us from the world; to keep before one's mind the great truth, that we have here "no continuing city, and no abiding place. The trial here, makes us pant for a world of rest. The opposition of sinners makes us desire that world where the wicked shall cease from troubling, and where there shall be eternal friendship and peace.
When we are persecuted and afflicted, we may remember that it has been the lot of Believers from the beginning. We tread a path that has been watered by the tears of the saints, and rendered sacred by the shedding of the best blood on the earth.