Acts 20:15 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

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 (Thuc. Book iii.), the brilliant tyranny of Polycrates at Samos (Herod. iii. 39-56), 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 (Herod. v. 28-36), was practically the port of Ephesus, the harbour of which had been gradually choked by the accumulation of silted-up sand.