Caligula’s Party Barge (c. 37 CE to 41 CE)
Emperor Caligula loved to have a good time, no matter who had to be hurt to make it happen. While his reputation centers mainly on his love for sadism and pleasures that make Bacchanals look like a church picnic, he also loved spending copious amounts of money for personal pleasure. To mix his love of partying and love of spending, he built himself two party barges on what is now known as Lake Nemi.
One of the barges was 73 meters (240 feet) long, with ten oar banks and 11 meter (36 foot) long oars. The barges had gardens with fruit trees and vines, and plumbing for baths, saloons. Rumors abound about the parties on the Nemi ships, from orgies, to adultery and incest. Obsessed with the ships, Benito Mussolini had them recovered in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but were burned to ashes in 1944.
