Samuel N. answered • 12/08/21
Bachelor’s Degree in the Classics/Latin from Rhodes College
That is a claim. I cannot refute it, but I can qualify it. If by "are" you mean that we currently have access to, then possibly, but you would also need to specify "ancient text(s)," "Ancient Greek," and "Latin." Sir Isaac Newton, a professor at Cambridge, wrote his treatises on Physics in Latin. If that is an ancient Latin text, then the number of Latin texts must outnumber Greek ones in every measurable way. If you mean texts written by citizens of Rome, we would have to set a date for when Rome began, when it ended, and then accurately determine what texts meet that definition. Things would become much more challenging if we include inscriptions on funerary monuments, statues, public works, etc.
I CAN tell you that we do, likely, have much more literature written in Attic and other forms of Ancient Greek than makes sense compared to Latin texts of the Republic and Empire. This is because the earliest *literature* written in Latin by Romans we possess is Roman comedy written long after the Roman monarchy. By comparison, we have very complete works of Greek poets and playwrights from centuries earlier. This may be because of the differences of priority of the two societies. Rome valued conquest, war, and expansion relatively more than did most of the ancient Greek city-states. Few could argue, at least, that Rome was not at least more empirically successful.
Greece, composed of many warring cities, and the Roman Republic and Empire, were very different in many ways. Rome's relative unity, greater access to resources, and more potent war technology made them a stronger and more enduring empire than any centered in Greece. Due to their fixation on expansion, territorial control, and theft of resources from all outlying regions they encountered, Rome valued the practical more than the artistic. Consequently, more Greek plays and poems were written, more were copied down over the millennia, and more have survived.
