Is this really all of the Latin from before 200 AD

[kylefoley202]

This site claims to have 'essentially' all of the texts from before 200 AD plus a few others

PHI Latin Texts - List of Authors

Is this really all of the text from before 200 AD? I suppose I should discount tiny fragments here and there, plus graffiti or inscriptions and I guess a few works discovered in Herculaneum recently. I would think there would be more.

 

[Pacifica]

I don't know (it's not as if I myself knew the names of all pre-AD-200 Latin writers) but it seems possible that the list includes all literary Latin writers of that period whose work has come down to us. Considering the circumstances, the list doesn't seem so short. How many did you expect there to be? How many famous writers could there have been in the space of a few centuries? How many of them were likely to remain known and have their works preserved with the means available at the time? How much could have endured through the vicissitudes of some two thousand years?

 

[AoM]

As usual, Pacifica sums up things well.

The amount we have from Cicero also skews things.

 

[syntaxianus]

See here for some notes on the lost writings of Latin literature. And how much of what we have comes from a single copy!

A claim has been made that as much as about 94% was lost...though how that number was attained is hard to see.