 But there were philosophical as well as literary reasons for this choice, and this takes us into the question of the outlook projected by the poem. In one of the two surviving fragments concerned with Xenophanes, he is referred to as hupatuphos, ‘partly free from tuphos.’ Pyrrho is the only one who managed to be entirely ‘free from tuphos’ (atuphos); but in the highly critical context of the Silloi, the epithet hupatuphos already raises Xenophanes above almost all the other philosophers who appear in the poem. The specific point for which Timon singles him out for this qualified praise is that he was a “mocker of Homeric deception.” This clearly refers to Xenophanes’ criticism of Homer’s (and Hesiod’s) anthropomorphic depiction of the gods (in which, among other typically human faults, they engage in deception—Timon’s coinage ‘of Homeric deception’ (Homêrapatês) may very well be a reflection of this point). This is not to say, however, that Timon wholly approves of Xenophanes’ theological stance. For Xenophanes’ positive view, according to which there is one unchanging god, appears to be a target for criticism in the same fragment (which is why he qualifies only as partly free from tuphos). In fact, it looks as if Timon is suspicious of theological pronouncements of any kind. For in another fragment Timon (very unusually among ancient commentators) praises Protagoras for his agnostic attitude towards the gods. This is understandable given the general framework supplied by Pyrrho; however precisely Pyrrho’s thought is interpreted, he clearly rejected physical speculation—and it was under that heading that speculation about the gods was taken, in the Hellenistic period, to belong.