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( Ëáóáßá , Westcott-Hort’s Greek Testament ËáóÝá )
Lasea was a city near Fair Havens, on the southern coast of Crete (Act_27:8). It is not elsewhere mentioned by any ancient geographical or other writer, but as it was one of the smaller of the hundred cities of the island-‘centum nobilem Cretam urbibus’ (Hor. Ep. ix. 29)-this need cause no surprise. The conjecture of Captain Spratt in 1853 as to its site was confirmed by G. Brown, who examined the ruins in 1856. He found the beach buried under masses of masonry, and higher up discovered the ruins of two temples. ‘Many shafts, and a few capitals of Grecian pillars, all of marble, lie scattered about.… Some peasants came down to see us from the hills above, and I asked them the name of the place. They said at once, “Lasea,” so there could be no doubt’ (J. Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul4, 1880, p. 268f.).
The city was about 5 miles east from Fair Havens, and 1 mile east from Cape Leonda, which was so named from its resemblance to a lion couchant. As St. Paul’s ship remained for ‘much time’ ( ἱêáíïῦ ÷ñüíïõ ) in the Havens, Lasea was perhaps frequently visited by the Apostle. It is quite possible that the evangelization of Crete, in which Titus afterwards laboured, was begun at that time.
James Strahan.