Students from all over the world who sign up to a new free online course on ancient Rome from the University of Reading will be invited to explore its temples, monuments, shops and back streets, through the most detailed digital model of the ancient city ever created.

Matthew Nicholls, a lecturer in the university’s classics department who has been working on the model for more than ten years, will lead the five week Rome: A Virtual Tour of the Ancient City programme starting on March 13. The course, Nicholls said, is for anyone interested in the city, from holidaymakers to prospective archaeology or history students. “We are offering an immersive and unique virtual tour of the Eternal City without even leaving your living room, and everyone is invited.”

The award-winning model of the city as it appeared in 315 AD, still being developed after ten years of work, gives 3D panoramic views of the city, showing its landmark sites in changing light at different times of day. These include a theatre lit by flaring torches, but also its sewers, alleys and watercourses, and the tombs which lined the approach roads.

The model can illustrate the views enjoyed in the Colosseum both by the emperor and by those in the cheapest wooden bench seats furthest from the action, and the streetscape as viewed by returning war heroes as they passed through triumphal arches on their way to the Forum.

It also shows how confusing the city could be at street level, away from the grand parade routes. Nicholls said there were literary accounts of how difficult the city was for the poor on foot – rather than the rich in their chariots – to navigate, with its hills, narrow streets and traffic jams.

“Walking round the city at ground level rather than viewing it on a map is a very different experience,” Nicholls said. “I keep getting lost!”