Peripteros is the special name given to a type of ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 or Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 temple surrounded by a portico with columns. It refers to the useful element for the architectural definition of buildings surrounded around their outside by a colonnade (pteron

Pteron

Pteron is an architectural term used by Pliny the Elder for the peristyle of the tomb of Mausolus, which was raised on a lofty podium, and so differed from an ordinary peristyle raised only on a stylobate, as in Greek temples, or on a low podium, as in Roman temples....

) on all four sides of the cella

Cella

A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...

 (naos

Cella

A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...

), creating a four-sided arcade (peristasis

Peristasis (architecture)

The Peristasis was a four-sided porch or hall of columns surrounding the cella in an ancient Greek peripteros temple. This allowed priests to pass round the cella in cultic processions. If such a hall of columns surrounds a patio or garden, it is called a peristyle rather than a peristasis...

). By extension, it also means simply the perimeter of a building (typically a classical temple), when that perimeter is made up of columns. The term is frequently used of buildings in the Doric order

Doric order

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...

.

Definition

The peripteros can be a portico, a kiosk or a chapel. If it made up of four columns, it is tetrastyle; of 6, hexastyle; of 8, octastyle; of 10, decastyle; and of 12, dodecastyle. If the columns are fitted into the wall instead of standing alone, it is called a pseudo-peripteros.