different contexts. Our work clearly seems based on a great mass of material collected and written down in the course of a life-time; and, on the other hand, it is certainly a unity, the diverse strands being firmly held and woven entually into the main thread. This view makes it difficult to lay stress on references to later events as proving the late composition of any particular passage. The work as it stands is the composition of the man's last years, though large masses of the material of it maybe taken, with hardly a word altered, from manuscripts he has had by him for lustres.
In one important point Meyer and Busolt appear to be right, as against Mr. Macan and most Herodotean authorities-in placing the Egyptian 'Logoi' quite late, after the historian's return from Thurii, rather than before his first settlement there. Book II. stands very much apart from the rest of the work; it shows signs of a deep inward impression on the mind of the writer made by the antiquity of Egyptian history and culture; and, with all its helpless credulity on the unarmed side of Herodotus's mind, itshows a freer attitude towards the Greek religion than any other part. If this impression had been early made, it would surely have left more mark upon the general run of the work than is now visible. There is, however, another hypothesis quite probable: he thinks that the plagiarism is too strong for ordinary ancient practice, unless we suppose that these 'Logoi' were intended only for use in public readings, and never received the revision necessary for a permanent book-form.
Our judgments about Herodotus are generally affected
