Lasea

LASEA (la-sē'a). A small seaport town on the southern coast of Crete, about five miles (eight km.) east of Fair Havens, listed by Luke (Acts.27.8) in the log of Paul’s voyage to Rome. No other ancient writer mentions the place.

Luke states in Acts 27:8 that Lasea was near Fair Havens, which the ship on which Paul was being taken to Italy had reached with difficulty. Quite possibly ruins about five m. E of Fair Havens are those of Lasea.

Not much is known about Lasea. It has received little notice in surviving lit.; but it has been thought that it is the same as the Lasos which Pliny the Elder mentions in his Natural History (IV. xii. 59) among the numerous important cities of Crete, an island which he tells us was renowned for the reputation of its 100 cities (ibid., 58).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)

A town on the South coast of Crete, 5 miles East of Fair Havens (Ac 27:8). The ruins were examined in 1856 by G. Brown (see Code of Hammurabi (St. P), chapter xxiii, 640). If Paul’s ship was detained long at this anchorage, it would be necessary to purchase stores from Lasea; and this in addition to the inconvenience of the roadstead (see Fair Havens) would probably explain the captain’s reluctance to winter there.