The literary tradition, and in particular the Vitruvian tradition, establishes that one of the main differences between Greek and Roman houses lies in the relationship they establish with the external environment: through the interplay of its double doors and its chicane entrances, the interior of the Greek house is hidden from view, whereas the Roman house plays with an axiality thought out from the entrance threshold to allow the visitor to discover its full extent. This paper proposes to see how the opacity of the Greek house evolves towards a greater transparency, between the Hellenistic and the Imperial periods, through the architectural introduction of new types of courtyards and the development of houses in plan and no longer in storey.