Although it is theoretically possible (and has been asserted) that the Iliad followed the Odyssey, or that the two poems were composed quite independently, with no influence from one to the other, majority opinion ancient and modern puts the Odyssey later, and assumes it to be in important respects a successor, even a sequel, to the Iliad. This position can be maintained in various forms: those who believe in a single master-poet as the creator of both epics may assign the Iliad to Homer’s youth, the Odyssey to his riper years (a position memorably expressed by Longinus); those who follow the ancient separatists can regard the Odyssey as a rival work, composed by a poet who immensely admired the Iliad but whose own poetic and moral concerns lay elsewhere. On the whole the latter view is now more common, though there are eminent advocates on both sides. In fact it is probably impossible, in a tradition which involved so much use of conventional themes and formulaic material, to decide firmly in favour of common or separate authorship. Whichever view one prefers, the important point seems to be that the Odyssey is later, and that it is conceived as a poem on the same scale as the Iliad, but differing strikingly in content and ethos.