For all the Athenians and strangers. — The restless inquisitiveness of the Athenian character had been all along proverbial. In words which St. Luke almost reproduces, Demosthenes (Philipp. i., p. 43) had reproached them with idling their time away in the agora, asking what news there was of Philip’s movements, or the action of their own envoys, when they ought to have been preparing for strenuous action. The “strangers” who were present were probably a motley group — young Romans sent to finish their education, artists, and sight-seers, and philosophers, from every province in the empire.
Some new thing. — Literally, some newer thing; as we should say, the “very latest news.” Theophrastus (c. 8) uses the self-same word in describing the questions of the loquacious prattlers of society, “Is there anything new?... Is there anything yet newer?”