Furthermore the Homeric gods are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. “The gods know all things” is a pious tribute of the poet, but the narrative shows it to be untrue. In the thirteenth book of the Iliad, when Zeus is gazing off into Thrace he fails to notice that Poseidon enters the battle on the plain immediately below him.[5] In the fifth book of the Odyssey the tables are turned in a sense, for Poseidon finds that during his absence among the Ethiopians the Olympians have taken action favorable to Odysseus, whose return the god of the sea would fain prevent.[6] For nine years Thetis and Eurynome alone among the gods knew where Hephaestus was concealed: when he had been thrown from heaven by his mother in shame for his lameness, they hid him in a grotto where the sound of the stream of Oceanus drowned the noise of his smithy.[7] Apollo arrives too late to save Rhesus from his fate;[8] and we are told that in the previous generation Ares was imprisoned by the giants Otus and Ephialtes in a bronze jar, like an Oriental jinn, for thirteen months. There he had perished if it had not been for the friendly aid of Hermes who stole him from his prison.[9] The gods at times thwart one another’s purposes, and, as we have seen, they may even be wounded or frightened like human beings.[10] In such ways as these do the Homeric divinities show their limitations. Not only can the gods thwart one another, but they are all at times subject to Fate or Destiny, which, although vaguely conceived by the poet, is none the less inexorable. It seems usually to be an impersonal power, although sometimes it is identified with the will of an indefinite god (δαἰμονος αἶσα) or with that of Zeus himself (Διὸς αἶσα). It was fated that Sarpedon, the son of Zeus, should die, and Zeus, in spite of his grief, yielded him up to his doom, not because he could not have opposed Fate successfully, but because he feared that other divinities would wish to save their children if he saved his.[11] Yet in the Odyssey Athena disguised as Mentor declares to Telemachus that not even the gods can save a man they love whenever the fatal doom of death lays hold on him.[12] So naturally inconsistent is the poet, for in his day men had not reached the stage where they could form any adequate notion of unity in the world. Fate therefore is not conceived to be an inexorable power which is constantly operative, as we find it represented at a later time among the Greeks and among the Romans, notably in Virgil.