Vitruvius Pollio, The Ten Books on Architecture
Morris Hicky Morgan, Ed.

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5. Between the two peristyles and the guests' apartments are the passage-ways called “mesauloe,” because they are situated midway between two courts; but our people called them “andrones.” This, however, is a very strange fact, for the term does not fit either the Greek or the Latin use of it. The Greeks call the large rooms in which men's dinner parties are usually held ἀνδρῶνες, because women do not go there. There are other similar instances as in the case of “xystus,” “prothyrum,” “telamones,” and some others of the sort. As a Greek term, ξυστός means a colonnade of large dimensions in which athletes exercise in the winter time. But our people apply the term “xysta” to uncovered walks,

which the Greeks call παραδρομίδες. Again, πρόθυρα, means in Greek the entrance courts before the front doors; we, however, use the term “prothyra” in the sense of the Greek διάθυρα.