Son of
Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 212 BC) and brother of
Publius Claudius Pulcher (consul 184 BC), in
197 BC and the three following years, he served as military tribune under
Titus Quinctius Flamininus in Greece in the war with
Philip V of Macedon. We find him again in Greece in
191 BC, serving first under
Marcus Baebius Tamphilus in the war with
Antiochus III the Great, and afterwards under the consul
Manius Acilius Glabrio against the
Aetolians. In
187 BC he was made
praetor, and governor of
Tarentum, which fell to him by lot as his province. In
185 BC he was elected
consul, and gained some advantages over the Ingaunians, a tribe of the
Ligurians, and, by his violent interference at the
comitia, procured the election of his brother Publius to the consulship. In
184 BC, when Philip was preparing for a new war with the Romans, Appius was sent at the head of an embassy into
Macedon and
Greece, to observe his movements and wrest from his grasp the cities of which he had made himself master. In
176 BC he was one of an embassy sent to the Aetolians, to bring about a cessation of their internal hostilities and oppose the machinations of
Perseus of Macedon.