in the provinces. On his death the senate decreed divine honours to him under the title of Divus Augustus, the erection of a temple, the founding of special games, and the establishment of a peculiar priesthood. After this, admission to the number of the Divi, as the deified emperors were called, becomes a prerogative of the imperial dignity. It is, however, left dependent on a resolution of the senate moved in honour of the deceased emperor by his successor. Hence it is not every emperor who obtains it, nor does consecration itself always lead to a permanent worship. Empresses too were often consecrated, first Augustus' wife Livia as Diva Augusta, and even other members of the imperial house.
The ceremony of Apotheosis used from the time of Augustus was the following. After the passing of the senate's decree a waxen image of the dead, whose body lay hidden below, was exhibited for seven days on an ivory bed of state in the palace, covered with gold-embroidered coverlets; then the bier was borne by knights and senators amidst a brilliant retinue down the Via Sacra to the ancient Forum, where the funeral oration was delivered, and thence to the Campus Martius, where it was deposited in the second of the four stories of a richly decorated funeral pile of pyramid shape. When the magistrates sacred and secular, the knights, lifeguard, and others concerned, had performed the last honours by processions and libations, the pile was set on fire, and as it burned up, an eagle soared from the topmost storey into the sky, a symbol of the ascending soul.
Appārĭtor. The general name in Latin for all public servants of the magistrates. They all had to be Roman citizens, and were paid a fixed salary out of the public treasury. Though nominated by the respective officers for a year at a time, they were usually re-appointed, so that practically their situations were secured for life, and they could even sell their places. The most important classes of these attendants were those of scrībæ, lictōrēs, viātōrēs and præcōnēs (q.v.). These were divided into decūriæ of varying strength, which enjoyed corporate rights, and chose foremen from their own body. (Comp. Accensi.)
Appellātiō. The Latin term for an appeal to a magistrate to put his veto on the decision of an equal or inferior magistrate. Thus a consul could be appealed to against his colleague. and all other magistrates except the tribunes, but a tribune both against his colleagues and all magistrates whatsoever. Another thing altogether was the Provŏcātiō (q.v.) under the Republic, an appeal from a magistrate's sentence to the People as supreme judge. During the imperial period the two processes run into one, for the emperor held united in his person both the supreme judicial function and the plenary power of all magistrates, particularly the tribunician veto, so that an appeal to him was at once an appellatio and a provocatio. This appeal, in our sense of the word, was only permitted in important cases; it had to be made within a short time after sentence was passed, and always addressed to the authority next in order, so that it only reached the emperor if no intermediate authority was competent. If the result was that the disputed verdict was neither quashed nor awarded, but confirmed, the appellant had to pay a fine. As the power of life and death rested with the emperor and senate alone, governors of provinces were bound to send up to Rome any citizen appealing on a capital charge.
Appiānus. A Greek historian, of Alexandria, who lived about the middle of the 2nd century a.d. At first he pursued the calling of an advocate at Rome; in later life, on the recommendation of his friend the rhetorician Fronto, he obtained from Antōnīnus Pius the post of an imperial procurator in Egypt. He wrote an extensive work on the development of the Roman Empire from the earliest times down to Trajan, consisting of a number of special histories of the several periods and the several lands and peoples till the time when they fell under the Roman dominion. Of the twenty-four books of which it originally consisted, only eleven are preserved complete beside the Preface: Spain (book 6), Hannibal (7), Carthage (8), Syria (11), Mithridates (12), the Roman Civil Wars (13–17) and Illyria (23), the rest being lost altogether, or only surviving in fragments. Appian's style is plain and bald, even to dryness, and his historical point of view is purely Roman. The book is a mere compilation, and disfigured by many oversights and blunders, especially in chronology; nevertheless the use made by the writer of lost authorities lends it considerable worth, and for the history of the Civil Wars it is positively invaluable.
Apsĭnēs. A Greek rhetorician, of Gădăra, who taught at Athens in the first half of the 3rd century a.d., and wrote a valuable treatise on Rhetoric.
Apulēius (Lucius). Born about 130 a.d.
