Among these descriptions of countries the most fascinating to the
modern, as it was to the ancient, reader is his account of the marvels
of the land of Egypt. From the priests at Memphis, Heliopolis, and the
Egyptian Thebes he learned what he reports of the size of the country,
the wonders of the Nile, the ceremonies of their religion, the
sacredness of their animals. He tells also of the strange ways of the
crocodile and of that marvelous bird, the Phoenix; of dress and funerals
and embalming; of the eating of lotos and papyrus; of the pyramids and
the great labyrinth; of their kings and queens and courtesans.

Yet Herodotus is not a mere teller of strange tales. However credulous
he may appear to a modern judgment, he takes care to keep separate what
he knows by his own observation from what he has merely inferred and
from what he has been told. He is candid about acknowledging ignorance,
and when versions differ he gives both. Thus the modern scientific
historian, with other means of corroboration, can sometimes learn from
Herodotus more than Herodotus himself knew.

There is abundant evidence, too, that Herodotus had a philosophy of
history. The unity which marks his work is due not only to the strong
Greek national feeling running through it, the feeling that rises to a
height in such passages as the descriptions of the battles of Marathon,
Thermopylae, and Salamis, but also to his profound belief in Fate and
in Nemesis. To his belief in Fate is due the frequent quoting of oracles
and their fulfilment, the frequent references to things foreordained by
Providence. The working of Nemesis he finds in the disasters that befall
men and nations whose towering prosperity awakens the jealousy of the
gods. The final overthrow of the Persians, which forms his main theme,
is only one specially conspicuous example of the operation of this force