Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 20:15

"And sailing from thence, we came the following day over against Chios; and the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after we came to Miletus." — Acts 20:15 (ASV)

We sailed thence . . .—After the usual manner of the Mediterranean navigation of the time, the ship put into harbour, where it was possible, every evening.

Each of the stations named—Lesbos, Chios, Samos—has legendary and historical associations of its own, full of interest for the classical student; but these, we may well believe—the revolt of Mitylene in the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides, Book 3), the brilliant tyranny of Polycrates at Samos , even “the blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle”—were nothing to the Apostle and his companions.

Trogyllium, the last station named before Miletus, was a promontory on the mainland, forming the extremity of the ridge of Mycale, and separated from Samos by a narrow channel of about a mile in width.

Miletus, famous for its dyes and woollen manufactures, memorable in its earlier history for the disastrous issue of its revolt against Persia , was practically the port of Ephesus, the harbour of which had been gradually choked by the accumulation of silted-up sand.