"Ecce levis summo de vertice visus Iüli
Fundere lumen apex...."
Æn. II. 682-3.
The common translations of apex with its epithet levis seem to me to be strangely deficient in sense. I am anxious to submit an idea which has occurred to me to the judgment of the riper scholars whose well-known names are subscribed to so many valuable articles in "N. & Q." The Delphin note defines apex to be "summa pars pilei," the conical termination of the bonnet worn by Iülus; and in this all other comments on this passage (at least with which I am acquainted) seem to agree. But in what sense can any part of a cap or bonnet be levis—light, flimsy, worthless, or capricious? which I take to be the only meanings of which levis is capable. Surely Virgil would not be guilty of so meaningless an epithet—of so palpable an instance of school-boy cram? Now, from a passage in Euripides, Phœn. 1270-4.,
"... ἐμπύρους τ' ἀκμὰς
ῥήξεις τ' ἐνώμων ὑγρότητ' ἐναντίαν,
ἄκραν τε λαμπάδ', ἣ δυοῖν ὅρους ἔχει,
νίκης τε σῆμα καὶ τὰ τῶν ἡσσωμένων."
it seems clear to me that Virgil meant, by levis apex, a light, flickering, lambent, pyramidal flame, the omen of success in the Πυρομαντεία.
The nature of the flame which consumed the sacrifice was one point which the haruspices, both Greek and Roman, particularly observed in endeavouring to ascertain the will of the gods; hence the expressions ἔμπυρα σήματα, φλογωπὰ σήματα. See Valckenaer on this very passage of the Phœnissæ.
E. S. TAYLOR, B.A.
Martham, Norfolk.