Passages clearly marked 'early' or

Passages clearly marked 'early' or 'late' are rare; and since they might have been either passed over in revision or inserted later, they cast no light on the date of any larger sections of the History. 'Early' passages are not in any case troubling: the narrative need not be in its final form for it to have a considered pattern, with connections between its various parts. Nor does the narrative's incompleteness undermine this view. Indeed, if the text is an assembly of fragments from various periods, some of them mere early drafts, we might expect to have Thucydides' preliminary account of the last few years of the war, especially as we know from internal references that he continued writing after 404.