In written Latin language, the apex (plural "apices") is a mark with roughly the shape of an acute accent () or apostrophe () that was sometimes placed over vowels to indicate that they were long vowel.
The shape and length of the apex can vary, sometimes within a single inscription. While virtually all apices consist of a line sloping up to the right, the line can be more or less curved, and varies in length from less than half the height of a letter to more than the height of a letter. Sometimes, it is adorned at the top with a distinct hook, protruding to the left. Rather than being centered over the vowel it modifies, the apex is often considerably displaced to the right.[malus, an apex indicates that it means 'apple tree' and not 'bad man'; palus also means one thing if the first syllable is long and another if the second is long; and when the same letter is found as short in the nominative and as long in the ablative, we commonly need to be reminded which interpretation to choose."] Terentius Scaurus had a similar recommendation.[Terentius Scaurus, De Orthographia VII,33,5] Long vowels were never indicated consistently; writers most often marked them in grammatical endings, to avoid visual confusion with other letters, and to denote phrasal units.
Identification with the sicilicus
The apex is often discussed in relation to the
sicilicus, a Latin diacritic mentioned by grammarians and attested in a handful of inscriptions, which was a curved line used above consonants to denote that they should be pronounced double.
Revilo P. Oliver has argued that they are the same sign, a mark of gemination which was used over any letter to indicate that the letter should be read twice, as a long vowel or geminate consonant.
The distinction between a sicilicus that was used above consonants and an apex that was applied to vowels is then completely artificial: "There is
no example of this mark the that can be distinguished from an apex by any criterion other than its presence above a letter that is not a long vowel," Oliver writes, and "No ancient source says
explicitly that there were two different signs...".
Some aspects of Oliver's theory have generally been corroborated by more recent research, while other aspects have been challenged.
Gallery
Inscription displaying apices (from the shrine of the Augustales at Herculaneum).jpg|Inscription displaying very thin apices and long i. Herculaneum, 1st century CE.
Scriptura con apices Nimes 1750.jpg|Epitaph displaying apices and long i. Nimes, 1st–2nd century CE.
I littera in manuscripto.jpg|Papyrus fragment written in Roman cursive showing apices.
uobis · ujdetur · p · c · decern ám(us · ut · etiam)
pr ól átis · rebus ijs · j údicibus · n(ecessitas · judicandi)
impon átur quj · jntr á rerum (· agendárum · dies)
jncoh áta · judicia · non · per(egerint · nec)
defuturas · ignoro · fraudes · m(onstrósa · agentibus)
multas · aduersus · quas · exc(ogitáuimus)...
Pilate_Inscription.JPG|The Pilate stone (1st century AD?), displaying a large apex mark.
See also
