useless pretty things

The scholar Didymus wrote four thousand works: I should feel sorry for him if he had merely read so many useless works. In these works he discusses such questions as Homer’s origins, who was Aeneas’ real mother, whether Anacreon’s manner of life was more that of a lecher or that of a drunkard, whether Sappho slept with anyone who asked her, and other such things that would be better unlearned if one actually knew them! Don’t you go and tell me now that life is long enough for this sort of thing!

—Seneca. Trans. Robin Campbell.