Rome Reborn & Digital Roman Forum

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Ancient Rome was vividly brought to life in 2000's Oscar winning movie Gladiator starring Russell Crowe. As the movie nears its climax Crowe's character, Maximus, is brought to Rome to fight in the gladiatorial games occurring inside the roman colosseum. What we see of the roman colosseum, and all the ancient ruins in and around the city, is the result of 2000 years of mistreatment, pollution and disrepair.

While still an impressive monument (recently named one of the NEW 7 Wonders of the World) it looks old. The movie Gladiator brought the splendor of the colosseum and much of ancient Rome to vivid life. Now Rome Reborn and Digital Roman Forum have done it online.

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Rome Reborn offers students several digital Quicktime movies of what it would have been like for a Roman citizen to walk down the various streets. The animation is well done but the movies are small-ish in size. It does offer some amazing high resolution still images of places like the colosseum, the Forum of Julius Caesar and various shots of the city of Rome itself.

The Digital Roman Forum is another site similar to Rome Reborn in that it allows the viewer to take a digital tour of Rome. It is laid out somewhat differently and has some options Rome Reborn does not. One example is the ability to control the view of a building you want to look at (When you move your mouse the view of the building changes). It also offers Quicktime movies, and digital photos.

It offers a good browse function that allows you to find what you want faster as well. For example if a student wanted to know all the Religions structures it would allow that student to find and view the quickly.

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These sites would be great when teaching the Grade 9 Social Studies Time Unit.

For this type of website I would suggest a student use it when doing a project on Ancient Rome. What was the city like? Well, this site would show the class exactly what the city was like (to our best estimations anyway).

The students could also use the site to compare and contrast various aspects or characteristics of the ancient civilizations of Israel and Greece with Rome. Or, have them compare Ancient Rome with Canadian society today.

Students could also investigate some of the links between Canadian culture and Ancient Rome because many of these characteristics have come down to us through time from ancient European cultures, specifically ancient Rome.