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Greek is older. It is attested earlier and reached its classical form earlier than Latin.

The oldest inscriptions in a recognizable, but archaic, form of Greek are the Mycenean inscriptions written in the Linear-B script, dating back to at least the 13th century B.C. The Homeric poems (Iliad, Odyssey) go back to roughly the 7th century B.C. (though opinions differ), and the classic dramatists Aeschylus and Sophocles lived in the 5th century B.C.

By contrast, the earliest Latin inscriptions go back only to the 6th century B.C. (a little earlier if you admit the Praeneste fibula, which most scholars consider a forgery), and the earliest substantial literary remains, including of the plays of Plautus and the poetry of Ennius, date from the third and second centuries B.C. The classical period of Latin literature is considered to have begun around 75 B.C.

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15y ago

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