92. Philosophy in the West. -- When Rome ceased to be the political capital of the world, she also lost her scientific preeminence. The fourth century produced in the West only a few insignificant commentaries on logic and a few Latin translations of Greek works. VEGETIUS PRAETEXTATUS and MARIUS VICTORINUS (who lived as a rhetorician under Constantius about 350) are the only writers worthy of mention. In the fourth or fifth. century CHALCIDIUS, and in the fifth MACROBIUS, devoted themselves to Platonic and Neo-Platonic compilations which were afterwards widely read and consulted in the early Middle Ages. As for MARTIANUS CAPELLA and Boëthius, although they are both products of Grecian culture, they belong rather to the medieval period.

The influence of Grecian philosophy extended down through the medieval period, making itself felt in three separate centres: in the Byzantine, in the Asiatic, and in the Western philosophy. Accordingly, we find it in the philosophy of the Fathers of the Church, which marks the transition from Grecian philosophy to the philosophy of the Middle Ages.