Editing Peristyle (section)

==In Roman architecture==
[[File:Dioklecijanova palaca, Split N-3.jpg|thumb|Peristyle in [[Diocletian's Palace]]]]
In rural settings, a wealthy Roman could surround a [[villa]] with [[terraced gardens]] but often included a peristyle with the design; in a ''[[domus]]'' in the city, Romans often used peristyle to create a garden or open space within the house. The columns or square pillars surrounding the garden supported a shady roofed [[portico]] whose inner walls were often embellished with elaborate wall paintings of landscapes and ''[[trompe-l'œil]]'' architecture. Sometimes the ''[[lararium]]'', a shrine for the [[Lares]], the gods of the household, was located in this portico, or it might be found in the [[Atrium (architecture)|atrium]].<ref>E. B. MacDougall, W. M. F. Jashemski, eds., ''Ancient Roman Gardens: Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture'', 1979.</ref>

The courtyard might contain flowers and shrubs, fountains, benches, sculptures and even fish ponds.<ref>E. B. MacDougall, W. M. F. Jashemski, eds., ''Ancient Roman Gardens: Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture'', 1979.</ref> Romans devoted as large a space to the peristyle as site constraints permitted. In the grandest development of the urban peristyle house, as it evolved in [[Roman North Africa]], often one part of the portico was eliminated for a larger open space.<ref>[[Yvon Thébert]], "Private life and domestic architecture in Roman Africa", in [[Paul Veyne]], ed. ''A History of Private Life'', I: ''From Pagan Rome to Byzantium'' (1985, [[Arthur Goldhammer]], tr., 1987) esp. "The peristyle", pp 357–64.</ref>

The end of the Roman ''domus'' is one mark of the extinction of [[late antiquity]]. Simon P. Ellis wrote in the ''American Journal of Archaeology'' that it represented "the disappearance of the Roman peristyle house marks the end of the ancient world and its way of life."<ref>Simon P. Ellis, "The End of the Roman House" ''American Journal of Archaeology'' '''92'''.4 (October 1988:565–576) opened the article's abstract with these words.</ref> "No new peristyle houses were built after A.D. 550." Noting that as houses and villas were increasingly abandoned in the fifth century, a few palatial structures were expanded and enriched, as power and classical culture became concentrated in a narrowing class, and public life withdrew to the [[basilica]], or audience chamber, of the magnate.<ref>Ellis notes G. Akerström-Hougen, ''The Calendar and Hunting Mosaics of the Falconer in Argos'', Stockholm, 1974; a somewhat later peristyle house, at Hermione in the Peloponnesus, of the end of the 6th century, was not initiated at this late date but a partial reconstruction of an earlier elite dwelling (Ellis 1988:565).</ref>

In the [[Eastern Roman empire]], late antiquity lingered longer: Ellis identified the latest-known peristyle house built from scratch as the Villa of the Falconer at [[Argos, Peloponnese]], dating from the style of its floor [[mosaic]]s to about 530–550.<ref>Ellis notes G. Akerström-Hougen, ''The Calendar and Hunting Mosaics of the Falconer in Argos'', Stockholm, 1974; a somewhat later peristyle house, at Hermione in the Peloponnesus, of the end of the 6th century, was not initiated at this late date but a partial reconstruction of an earlier elite dwelling (Ellis 1988:565).</ref> Existing houses in many cases were subdivided to accommodate a larger and less elite population in a warren of small spaces, and columned porticoes were enclosed in small cubicles, as at the House of Hesychius at [[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]].<ref>Noted by Ellis p. 567.</ref>