ABSTRACT
The chapter lays out the aims of the book: what is the object of the study, what are the source materials, what are the methodological and theoretical approaches to the studied material? The main question is how does the peristyle garden reflect the socioeconomic status of the owner? It is inseparably connected with the sub-questions: how were the peristyles designed, used, and perceived? On a large scale, these questions and examinations help us to define how ideas and trends circulated in the Roman world and how the peristyles were connected to their wider contexts: the Roman house and urban life. The theoretical stand point is constructed based on the works of social and architectural theorists, such Thorstein Veblen, Pierre Bourdieu, and Amos Rapoport, whose works are applied to the studies of the ancient world by scholars such as Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and Paul Zanker.
