Note 495 — LIFE OF DION.

I conceive that the “atrium” or “cavædium” of the house, that is, the interior peristyle or court surrounded with columns, is meant, and that Dion, sitting on one side of this room, saw the apparition behind the columns on the other. An outside portico was a very unusual appendage to a Greek house, and Dion’s house is said to have been especially simple and unpretending, whereas nearly all houses were built with an inner court or “patio,” with its roof supported by columns, and into which the other rooms of the house opened.