Apex (diacritic)
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In written Latin, the apex (plural "apices") is a mark with roughly the shape of an acute accent ( ´ ) which is placed over vowels to indicate that they are long.
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.
The apex later developed into the acute accent, which is still used to mark vowel length in some languages, namely, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Irish, and historically Icelandic. In the 17th century, it was adapted to mark final nasalization in the early Vietnamese alphabet.
Although hardly known by most modern Latinists, the use of the sign was actually quite widespread during classical and postclassical times. The reason why it so often passes unnoticed lies probably in its smallish size and usually thinner nature in comparison with the lines that compose the letter on which it stands. Yet the more careful observer will soon start to notice apices in the exhibits of any museum, not only in many of the more formal epigraphic inscriptions, but also in handwritten palaeographic documents. However, otherwise punctilious transcriptions of the material customarily overlook this diacritic.
An apex is not used with the letter i; rather, the letter is written taller, as in lv́ciꟾ·a·fꟾliꟾ (lūciī a fīliī) at left.
Other expedients, like a reduplication of the vowels, are attested in archaic epigraphy; but the apex is the standard vowel-length indication that was used in classical times and throughout the most flourishing period of the Roman education system. Its use is recommended by the best grammarians, like Quintilian, who says that writing the apex is necessary when a difference of quantity in a vowel can produce a different meaning in a word, as in malus and málus or liber and líber or rosa and rosá.
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Wikipedia