Since 1994, a French research team has been developing a virtual model of the city Rome in the fourth century A.D. The architecture reconstruction presented during the CAA 2008 and 2009 makes fast progress (see www.unicaen.fr/rome) and a joint venture agreement has been signed with the American project “Rome Reborn”. For the CAA 2011, we would like to highlight another aspect of the historic virtual reconstruction, developed in the laboratory for more than fifteen years: reconstructing ancient roman machinery. How the Romans can build prestigious buildings such as the Colosseum or the baths of Caracalla with the technical means at their disposal? What machines were used to raise water (see www.unicaen.fr/ersam)?
The paper will focus on the virtual reconstruction of a war machine: an ox powered Roman paddle wheel boat, used for its impressive speed during naval actions. This warship, because of its own bulk and because of the machinery working inside it, was able to join battle with such pounding force that it easily wrecked and destroyed all enemy warships. The ship is described and drawn in a IVth century anonymous work but it is often considered as imagination by the researchers. The research team “Plan de Rome” has reconstructed this warship in interactive 3D, by basing itself on the story of techniques to find indications allowing to accredit the existence of the system. It is the first time in our knowledge that the reconstruction of this ship is tried and we shall show, through the experiment on the 3D model, that this warship of the Antiquity can work and beyond, that it is probably the ancestor of the paddle steamer. Through this reconstruction, we would like to insist on the value of the experimental history realized from virtual reconstructions scientifically justified: it is a media of future to develop innovative educational applications and to write new pages on the history of science and technology.

Full text available: http://arno.uva.nl/cgi/arno/show.cgi?fid=450268