Acts 27:1-5

Travelling in a Ship of Adramyttium

Though no guilt had been ascribed to Paul, he had appealed to Caesar. So, Festus, along with Agrippa and Bernice, delivered the apostle and some other prisoners into the hands of a centurion named Julius. Luke went along on this journey to Italy and noted the officer was of the Augustan Regiment, which Ash says was a tenth part of a legion of 6,000 soldiers. The ship they boarded was either flagged out of Adramyttium, located in northwest Turkey, or it was bound there. In either case, Luke told Theophilus that Aristarchus, whose home was in Thessalonica, was with them (Acts 27:1-2; Acts 19:29; Acts 20:4; Colossians 4:10).

Their first stop was in Sidon, where Julius gave Paul the special privilege of visiting his friends and being refreshed by them. Rather than sailing due west against the wind, the ship's captain sailed northward, using Cyprus as a shelter. The next stop, Myra in Lycia, was frequently used as a port in the Egyptian wheat trade, so Julius looked for a ship bound for Rome (Acts 27:3-5).