Croatian Latin literature Known by his contemporaries as the new Lucretius. Encouraged by this success, in Rome Stay began to expound Newtonian philosophy and scientific discoveries in verse. The finished poem, with more than 24,000 lines, was entitled "Ten Books of Philosophy in Verse" ("Philosophiae recentioris versibus traditae libri decem", 1755–1792). During the 19th century, Latin literature began to disappear throughout Europe, and in the 20th century (in spite of individual efforts) it almost completely disappeared. A Croatian Latinist of this period was Ton Smerdel (1904–1970), a classical philologist who has published seven books of Latin verse by modern neo-Latin poets. Croatian Latin
Greek East and Latin West the Slavic nations never fully embraced the language despite their long religious affiliation with the Eastern Romans/Byzantines. Greek East and Latin West Greek East" and "Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the "lingua franca" (Anatolia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East) and the western parts where Latin filled this role (Central and Western Europe). During the Roman Empire a divide had persisted between Latin- and Greek-speaking areas; this divide was encouraged by administrative changes in the empire's structure between the 3rd and 5th centuries,