As I have written before, I like the Classics thought game of trading some extant piece of literature for something we have allegedly lost (of roughly the same length, importance, or genre). Playing this game well, of course, requires knowing what is lost. Sometimes, I read Diogenes Laertius just for the names of the lost works. There is an elegant beauty in them. I suppose the work mentioned in this passage would probably be boring, but I would still read it.

Vita Philosophorum: Thales 1.38

“There were other people named Thales, as Demetrius the Magnesian writes in his On People with the Same Name, five of them: the orator from Kallatia, who had a difficult style; a painter from Sikyon who was quite talented. The third was really old, from around the time of Hesiod and Homer. Duris mentions the fourth in his On Painting. The fifth was more recent and not well known, but he is mentioned by Dionysus in his Criticisms.”

Γεγόνασι δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι Θαλαῖ, καθά φησι Δημήτριος ὁ Μάγνης ἐν τοῖς Ὁμωνύμοις, πέντε· ῥήτωρ Καλλατιανός, κακόζηλος·ζωγράφος Σικυώνιος, μεγαλοφυής·τρίτος ἀρχαῖος πάνυ, κατὰ Ἡσίοδον καὶ Ὅμηρον καὶ Λυκοῦργον· τέταρτος οὗ μέμνηται Δοῦρις ἐν τῷ Περὶζωγραφίας· πέμπτος νεώτερος, ἄδοξος, οὗ μνημονεύει Διονύσιος ἐν Κριτικοῖς.