What is debated in the Memnon theory is the implications of these similarities. The most immediate implication is that the poet of the "Iliad" borrowed material from the "Aethiopis". The debatable points are the poet's reasons for doing so; the status and condition of the "Aethiopis" story when this borrowing took place, that is to say whether it was Arctinus' epic that Homer borrowed from, or something less concrete, like a traditional legend; and the extent to which the "Aethiopis" and "Iliad" played off one another in their subsequent development.