  Although the remark has often been read as a pioneering expression of monotheism, this reading is made problematic by the nearby reference to ‘gods’ in the plural in the first line and the possibility that Xenophanes sought to highlight not the one god but rather the one greatest god (cf. Homer, Iliad 12, 243 for the use of ‘one’ (Greek heis) reinforcing a superlative). The relevant measures of divine ‘greatness’ are not specified, but the two most obvious choices would be greatness in honor and power, with honor perhaps the more basic of the two (cf. Iliad 2, 350; 2, 412; 4, 515; Od. 3, 378; 5,4; Hesiod, Theogony 49, 534, 538, etc.). Greatness in power would in turn explain the characterizations of the divine as perceptive and conscious in all its parts (B24), able to shake all things by the exercise of his thought (B25), and able to accomplish everything while remaining forever in the same place or condition (B26). It is unclear, however, how far Xenophanes himself realized the interconnections among the different divine attributes or sought to exploit those connections for didactic purposes. At least as they have come down to us, none of the remarks on the divine nature (B23–26) contains any of the inferential particles (gar, epei, oun, hoti, etc.) one would normally expect to find in a piece of reasoned discourse.