At the conclusion of his essay on Isaeos, Dionysios explains the principle of selection which has guided him in this and in the two other criticisms which are properly its companions, the essays on Lysias and Isokrates. He has chosen men who are not merely interesting in themselves but who have a certain typical significance. Lysias is the representative of those who cultivate terse, closely-reasoned discourse with a view to real contests, deliberative or forensic; and, having made a study of Lysias, he has felt himself exempted from discussing in detail the austere Antiphon, the frigid, inane and ungraceful Polykrates, the correct and subtle Thrasymachos, who, though inventive and forcible, is still a merely scholastic writer, the artificial Kritias and Zoilos, to whom, in different ways, the same general observation would apply. Isokrates, again, stands for all who have succeeded in the poetical, the elevated and stately manner; and, in like sort, absolves the critic from discussing Gorgias, ‘who lapses from moderation and is everywhere childish’; Alkidamas, his pupil, who is ‘somewhat coarse’; Theodoros of Byzantium, whose technical inaccuracies are not adequately compensated by ability, deliberative or forensic, and who, moreover, is antiquated; Anaximenes of Lampsakos, who aims at completeness, who would fain stand foursquare to rivalries from every quarter, but who, in every kind, is weak and devoid of persuasive charm; or, lastly, those contemporary imitators of Isokrates, in regard to expression, who are confessedly his inferiors, such as Theodektes, Naukrates, Philistos, Kephisodoros, Ephoros, Theopompos.