ROME, June 11: Tourists puzzled by the jumble of buildings in classical and modern Rome can now find their bearings by visiting a virtual model of the imperial capital in what is being billed as the world's biggest computer simulation of an ancient city.“Rome Reborn” was unveiled on Sunday in a first release showing the city at its peak in 320 AD, under the Emperor Constantine when it had grown to a million inhabitants.

Brainchild of the University of Virginia's Bernard Frischer, Rome Reborn (www.romereborn.virginia.edu) will eventually show its evolution from Bronze Age hut settlements to the Sack of Rome in the fifth century AD and the devastating Gothic wars.

Reproduced for tourists on satellite-guided handsets and 3-D orientation movies in a theatre to be opened near the Coliseum, Frischer says his model `will prepare them for their visit to the Coliseum, the Forum, the imperial palaces on the Palatine, so that they can understand the ruins a lot better’.“We can take people under the Coliseum and show them how the elevators worked to bring the animals up from underground chambers for the animal hunts they held,” he said, referring to the great Roman amphitheatre inaugurated by Titus in 80 AD.

Frischer's model is sourced from ancient maps and building catalogues detailing “apartment buildings, private houses, inns, storage facilities, bakeries and even brothels”, plus digital images of the vast “Plastico di Roma Antica” model built from plaster of Paris in 1936-74, which measures 16 by 17 metres.—Reuters