nd the higher or more distant apsides
respectively. The "line of apsides" is that which joins them, forming
the major axis of the orbit.

APSINES of Gadara, a Greek rhetorician, who flourished during the 3rd
century A.D. After studying at Smyrna, he taught at Athens, and gained
such a reputation that he was raised to the consulship by the emperor
Maximinus (235-238). He was the friend of Philostratus, the author of
the _Lives of the Sophists_, who speaks of his wonderful memory and
accuracy. Two rhetorical treatises by him are extant: [Greek: technae
raetorikae], a handbook of rhetoric greatly interpolated, a considerable
portion being taken from the _Rhetoric_ of Longinus; and a smaller work,
[Greek: perhi eschaematismenon problaematon], on Propositions maintained
figuratively.

Editions by Bake, 1849; Spengel-Hammer in _Rhetores Graeci_, ii.
(1894): see also Hammer, _De Apsine Rhetore_ (1876); Volkmann,
_Rhetorik der Griechen und Romer_ (1885).

APT, a town of south-eastern France, in the department of Vaucluse, on
the left bank of the Coulon, 41 m. E. of Avignon by rail. Pop. (1906)
4990. The town was formerly surrounded by massive ancient walls, but
these have now been for the most part replaced by boulevards; many of
its streets are narrow and irregular. The chief object of interest is
the church of Sainte-Anne (once the cathedral), the building of which
was begun about the year 1056 on the site of a much older edifice, but
not completed until the latter half of the 17th century. Many Roman
remains have been found in and near the town. A fine bridge, the Pont
Julien, spanning the Coulon below the town, dates from the 2nd or 3rd
century. A tribunal of first instance and a communal college are the
chief public institutions. The chief manufactures are silk,
confectionery and earthenware; and there is besides a considerable trade
in fruit, grain and cattle. Apt was at one time the chief town of the
Vulgientes, a Gallic tribe; it was destroyed by the Romans about 125
B.C. and restored by Julius Caesar, who conferred upon it the title
_Apta Julia_; it was much injured by the Lombards and the Saracens, but
its fortifications were rebuilt by the counts of Provence. The
bishopric, founded in the 3rd century, was suppressed in 1790.

APTERA (Greek for "wingless"), a term in zoological classification
applied by Linnaeus to various groups of wingless arthropods, including
some of the insects, the ce