To provide a privacy not always possible in the atrium, he built behind it a peristylium, a court open to the sky, planted with flowers and shrubs, adorned by statues, surrounded by a portico, and centering about a fountain or a bathing pool. Around this court he raised a new set of rooms: a triclinium or dining room, an oecus (“house”) for the women, a pinacotheca for his art collection, a bibliotheca for his books, and a lararium for his household gods; there might also be extra bedrooms, and little alcoves called exedrae—“sitting-out” nooks.
