The party departs Troas by ship ahead of Paul, instructed to take him on board at Assos. Paul walks the twenty-mile distance overland. Assos, a port city with the only good harbor on the north shore of the Adramyttian Gulf, stands on a seven-hundred-foot volcanic hill and faces south to the island of Lesbos. The port would have been known to Romans as the birthplace of the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes and the venue for three years of Aristotle's teaching career (Strabo Geography 13.1.57-58). Paul may make his rendezvous by sighting the ship while on his way and being taken on board before Assos, for so the verb tense indicates (Williams 1985:344).

They proceed forty-four miles south to Mitylene, a chief city on the island of Lesbos, some sixty miles south of Troy. Its position near old trade routes between the Hellespont and ports south and east made it an important seaport. Mitylene, a free city, was a favorite resort for Roman aristocrats.

Setting sail the next day, they arrive off Kios. Kios, an island shaped like a drawn bow facing Asia Minor, is twelve miles from ancient Smyrna and five miles from the mainland. The birthplace of Homer, it was struck with a violent earthquake in the time of Tiberius, who helped rebuild it.

The following day they cross over to Samos. One of the most famous of the Ionian islands, Samos lies at the mouth of the Bay of Ephesus, separated from the mainland by the milewide strait of Mycale. Samos was renowned not only for its works of art but also for its chief manufacture: pottery of a fine, smooth clay, deep red in color.

The next day they put in at Miletus. This most illustrious Ionian seaport on the west coast of Asia Minor was situated on the south promontory of a gulf into which the Meander River once emptied. It was economically prosperous, architecturally beautiful and religiously significant. The Milesian temple of Apollo at Didyma, famed for its oracles, was nearby.

These background comments show that this "name-dropping" itinerary would have been of interest to a Roman audience. Such an island-hopping method of travel was necessitated by the meteorological and topographical demands on first-century navigation. On the Aegean, summer winds customarily blew only during daylight hours, so sailing vessels could make no headway at night. Further, the narrow channels along the west coast of Asia Minor were so dotted with small islands that night navigation was dangerous.

Paul consciously bypasses Ephesus, and Luke tells us why: he does not want to be slowed down on his way to Jerusalem, for he desires to arrive there, if possible, by the day of Pentecost. Though Jewish piety may motivate him (see Deut 16:16), a celebration of the Spirit's outpouring on the first Christian Pentecost is certainly reason enough (Acts 2:1-13). Still, Paul's pastor's heart overcomes his personal schedule. He cannot do without one last contact with the church in Asia. With earnestness and authority he summons the elders from Ephesus, thirty-odd miles away.