[176] Serv. explains ‘rapuit,’ “raptim fecit;” Heyne, “raptim excepit.” Wagn. thinks the word has reference to a practice of waving the tinder to fan the flame. The question seems to be whether the motion expressed in ‘rapuit’ belongs to the act of Achates, or to the flame: either view would be defensible. Serv. explains ‘fomites’ to mean “assulae,” ‘chips,’ quoting two obscure and indeed corrupt passages from the Commentaries of Clodius: and so Festus, p. 64. Pliny, apparently with reference to this passage, says (16. 11), “teritur lignum ligno ignemque concipit attritu excipiente materia aridi fomitis fungi vel foliorum facillimo conceptu.” The process would be clear if we might take the ‘arida nutrimenta’ to be the ‘folia,’ the tinder in which the spark is first caught and kept alive, and from which the chip or match (‘fomes’) is then lighted. Comp. the imitation in Val. Fl. 2. 449, “citum strictis alius de cautibus ignem Ostendit foliis et sulfure pascit amico;” where “sulfur” (perhaps the match) seems to perform the part of the ‘fomes’ here. Weidner inclines to identify ‘folia’ and ‘fomes,’ which is not impossible.
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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