Pindar shows throughout the pervasive influence of Homer, both in his conception of the gods and in his style as well. He makes no break with the Homeric anthropomorphism, and his divinities are subject to the needs and desires of mortals; but his concept is a noble one, for his gods are mighty and permanent, while men are transitory and weak: “One is the race of men and of gods; from one mother we have the breath of life. Yet in power we are wholly diverse: for man is nothing, but the brazen heaven abides, a home ever unshaken. Still we resemble somewhat the immortals either in lofty mind or in nature; yet we know not in the day or in the night what course fate has marked out for us to run.”[113] The power and the knowledge of the gods are in fact complete and perfect; they are not the limited creatures of the Homeric pantheon. With them resides all power, so that they easily bring things to pass beyond man’s expectation. Their might may cause man’s wonder, but “nothing ever appears to be incredible”;[114] and in his second Pythian Ode the poet writes: “God bringeth every end to pass according to his desires. He overtaketh even the winged eagle and passeth the dolphin in the sea; and he bringeth low many a proud man, granting to others glory that grows not old.”[115] And in the ninth Pythian Ode he addresses Apollo thus: “Thou who knowest the final destiny of all things and all the paths thereto; all the leaves that the earth sends up in the spring, and all the sands whirled by the waves in sea and rivers and by the blasts of the winds; thou seest well the future and whence it shall come to pass.”[116]