Pindar’s gods are thus all-wise and all-powerful. At times he shows a certain tendency toward pantheism, for he speaks of god or divinity in a general sense, as if his mind conceived the divine nature to be one, so that the divinities were no longer several gods, but, as it were, bound together in a common divine unity. But we must not deceive ourselves into thinking that this pantheistic tendency was at all clearly developed in Pindar, or that he broke with polytheism. Rather he seems to have conceived of divinity as something which presents itself in many persons, the varied gods of the traditional pantheon. If we accept as genuine the fragment preserved by Clement of Alexandria,[117] in which the poet asks, “What is God?” and answers “The all,” we can hardly think that this pantheistic definition means more than the universal cause; unless indeed it resulted from the Orphic pantheism. But whatever Pindar’s views as to the unity of the divine, his teachings as to the gods’ power are clear. He warns men that they cannot hope to avoid the gods’ watchful eyes: “For if man expects to escape god’s notice when he does aught, he is mistaken.”[118] Moreover, Pindar teaches that the gods, though the givers of both good and evil to men, like Homer’s divinities, are nevertheless just and truthful beings who reward the righteous and reverent and punish the wicked: “The bliss of men who feel reverence lives longer, but he who associates with wicked purposes prospers not forever.”[119] Truth also belongs to god: indeed she is “the daughter of Zeus”, “the foundation of virtue.” Of Apollo it is said that he “lays not hold of lies.”[120] Here is a great advance over Homer’s ideas of the godhead. Pindar’s attitude in this respect is not dissimilar to that of Hesiod, who, as we have seen, first gave poetic expression to the idea that justice is an attribute and handmaid of Zeus.