APPELLĀTĬO, appeal.--(1) GREEK (ἔφεσις or ἀναδικία.) Owing to the constitution of the Athenian tribunals, each of which was generally appropriated to its peculiar subjects of cognisance, and therefore could not be considered as homogeneous with or subordinate to any other, there was little opportunity for bringing appeals properly so called. It is to be observed also, that in general a cause was finally and irrevocably decided by the verdict of the dicasts (δίκη αὐτοτελής). There were only a few exceptions in which appeals and new trials might be resorted to.--(2) ROMAN. The word _appellatio_, and the corresponding verb _appellare_, are used in the early Roman writers to express the application of an individual to a magistrate, and particularly to a tribune, in order to protect himself from some wrong inflicted, or threatened to be inflicted. It is distinguished from _provocatio_, which in the early writers is used to signify an appeal to the populus in a matter affecting life. It would seem that the provocatio was an ancient right of the Roman citizens. The surviving Horatius, who murdered his sister, appealed from the duumviri to the populus. The decemviri took away the provocatio; but it was restored by the _Lex Valeria et Horatia_, B.C. 449, in the year after the decemvirate, and it was at the same time enacted, that in future no magistrate should be made from whom there should be no appeal. On this Livy remarks, that the plebs were now protected by the _provocatio_ and the _tribunicium auxilium_; this latter term has reference to the appellatio properly so called. The complete phrase to express the provocatio is _provocare ad populum_; and the phrase which expresses the appellatio is _appellare ad_, &c. APSIS or ABSIS (ἁψίς), in architecture, signified first, any building or portion of a building of a circular form or vaulted, and more especially the circular and vaulted end of a Basilica.