APPELLATIO, an appeal. The Sempronian law secured this privilege to the Roman citizens, that they could not be capitally convicted, but by the suffrage of the people; and in whatever provinces they happened to reside, if the governor showed a disposition to condemn them to death, to scourge, or deprive them of their property, they had liberty to appeal from his jurisdiction to the judgment of the people. This law, which was enacted under the republican form of government, continued in force under the emperors; so that if any freeman of Rome thought himself ill used and aggrieved by the presidents in any of the provinces, he could, by appeal, remove his cause to Rome, to the determination of the emperor. A number of persons, we are told, were delegated by Augustus, all of consular rank, to receive the appeals of the people in the provinces. These observations will explain the nature of St. Paul’s appeal in the Acts of the Apostles. APPII FORUM, a place about fifty miles from Rome, near the modern town of Piperno on the road to Naples. It probably had its name from the statue of Appius Claudius, a Roman consul, who paved the famous way from Rome to Capua, and whose statue was set up here. To this place some Christians from Rome came to meet St. Paul, Acts xxviii, 15. APPLE TREE, תפוח, Prov. xxv, 11; Cant. ii, 3, 5; vii, 8; viii, 5; Joel i, 12. As the best apples of Egypt, though ordinary, are brought thither by sea from Rhodes, and by land from Damascus, we may believe that Judea, an intermediate country between Egypt and Damascus, has none that are of any value. Can it be imagined, then, that the apple trees of which the Prophet Joel speaks, i, 12, and which he mentions among the things that gave joy to the inhabitants of Judea, were those that we call by that name? Our translators must surely have been mistaken here, since the apples which the inhabitants of Judea eat at this day are of foreign growth, and at the same time but very indifferent. There are five places, beside this in Joel, in which the word occurs; and from them we learn that it was thought the noblest of the trees of the wood, and that its fruit was very sweet or pleasant, Cant. ii, 3; of the colour of gold, Prov. xxv, 11; extremely fragrant, Cant. vii, 8; and proper for those to smell that were ready to faint, Cant. ii, 5. We may be sure that the _taphuach_ was very early known in the holy land, as it is mentioned in the book of Joshua as having given name to a city of Manasseh and one of Judah. Several interpreters and critics render פר עץ הדר, Lev. xxiii, 40, _branches_, or fruit, _of the beautiful tree_; and understand it of the citron; and it is known that the Jews still make use of the fruit of this tree at their yearly feast of tabernacles.