es are in the southern part of Asia Minor, Derbe, Lystra, Iconium,
and Antioch, towns often mentioned in Acts.

_Troas_. An important shipping port, the nearest to Europe of the
important Asiatic towns. The Troy of Homer was in this region.

_Macedonia_, the ancient kingdom of Alexander the Great, was at this
time under the Romans. At Philippi great battles in the Roman empire had
been fought, and later a group of Romans settled, making the place a
colony, with certain important privileges for its citizens. Thessalonica
was an important seaport, the outlet for the products of a large section
of country. It had a large Jewish population. The modern town, under the
name Salonica, is still a port of some importance. Berea, about fifty
miles southwest of Thessalonica, was the center of a large, fertile
district, and had an important local trade.

{496}

_Asia_ is used in Acts to mean only the Roman province of Asia, which
was in the western part of Asia Minor. Its capital and largest city was
Ephesus. In this city was a temple, so great and beautiful that it was
one of the wonders of the ancient world. The image in the temple,
however, was not splendid or beautiful. It was a rude, ugly wooden
figure, but so highly regarded that the people believed it had actually
fallen down from heaven, as the town clerk said in his speech to the
people in the theater. The great city is gone now, but ruins of the
temple and the large theater are still to be seen.

_Aegean Sea_. Paul sailed back and forth over this sea several times, so
that its coasts in many parts must have become very familiar to him.
There is more story connected with its waters than with those of any
other sea in the world. Across it the Greeks sailed, in the stories of
Homer, to the siege of Troy. The Phoenicians traded in its coasts and
islands when Greek civilization was beginning to grow. The famous
stories of Greek poetry were all laid on or near its shores. Every
famous man of Greece had sailed its waters. Later came the Roman navies,
carrying the armies which conquered the world; and now, in the New
Testament period, came little groups of men, hiring their passage as
best they could in the ships that were continually passing to and fro.
The busy merchants and soldiers never stopped to look at them, and if
they had, would have cared nothing for them, but these obscure travelers
were bearing with them the future religion of Europe and America and the
en