It is more interesting to us to know that it was within a few miles of Colossae and Laodicea, and is mentioned by St.Paul (Col.iv.

13) in connexion with those two cities.
It must, therefore, have possessed a Christian Church from the earliest times, and, if Epictetus spent any part of his boyhood there, he might have conversed with men and women of humble rank who had heard read in their obscure place of meeting the Epistle of St.Paul to the Colossians, and the other, now lost, which he addressed to the Church of Laodicea.[61] [Footnote 61: Col.iv.

16.] It is probable, however, that Hierapolis and its associations produced very little influence on the mind of Epictetus.

His parents were people in the very lowest and humblest class, and their moral character could hardly have been high, or they would not have consented under any circumstance to sell into slavery their sickly child.

Certainly it could hardly have been possible for Epictetus to enter into the world under less enviable or less promising auspices.