The world’s first superyacht owner

Caligula: the first superyacht owner

Going to Rome in this edition of ‘The Y’ Yachting Itineraries, our research to find a yachting connection to the Roman empire brought up a remarkable piece of ancient history, which continues to unfold today.

Rome’s third Emperor, Caligula, was the world’s very first superyacht owner. Before his rise to power in 37AD, the largest known barges up to that point had been Egyptian. These barges carried the many Egyptian obelisks destined for the Eternal City that still stand there.

Biography • Full name: Gaius Julius Caesar

Augustus Germanicus • Other titles: Pontifex Maximus,

Pater Patriae • Born: Anzio, August 31, 12 AD • Died: Rome, January 24, 41 AD • Spouse: Junia Claudia (33-37),

Livia Orestilla (37-38 ), Lollia Paulina (38-39), Milonia Caesonia (39-41) • Children: Julia Drusilla • Father: Gaius Julius Caesar

Germanicus Claudian • Mother: Agrippina the elder • Reign: 37-41 AD

However, the ‘superyachts’ this young emperor commissioned never took to the seas. They remained on lake Nemi, covering roughly half the size of New York’s Central Park.

But why? It is a mystery that historians and archaeologists continue to examine 2,000 years later. The nickname, meaning ‘little boots’, stuck when as a three-year old boy he was brought along to the military frontline by his father, Germánico, wearing soldier’s uniform, complete with tiny army boots.

He rose to the throne upon the death of Tiberius and proved extremely popular, as he increased public spending in his first months in power. Wars ceased and Rome became the cultural centre of the empire. Cultural exchanges across the empire were stimulated, effectively inventing ‘fashion’. He also emptied the treasury in just one year.

Public adulation didn’t last long. Needing to raise money, he confiscated assets from the wealthiest and put his name among the heirs in their wills, subsequently inheriting after having them killed. Taxes were raised on everything from food to prostitution, turning his palace into a brothel and sending his servants out to find customers.

Caligula, the man

After seven months as Emperor, he contracted an illness from which he emerged a deranged and sadistic monster. Or, at least, so the history books based on accounts by the historian of the time, Suetonius, would have us believe.

Madness Historians have written that Caligula demanded to be worshipped as a living god, humiliated senators by making them run in front of his chariot and wanted to make his favourite horse, Incitatus, a consul. He was pale and hairy and made it a capital offence to speak of goats in his presence. Enemies were tortured and killed, of course.

“Oderint dum metuant”, he would say, ‘let them hate, as long as they fear.’ Sex Caligula revelled in decadence and it is his debauchery for which he is most renowned. Many readers of a certain vintage will have first learned of Caligula from that 1979 movie. Produced by men’s magazine Penthouse, ‘Caligula’ was an ‘erotic historical drama’, starring Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, and John Gielgud, no less. The movie was disowned by its stars after it was considerably ‘sexed up’

Nemi ship’s bronze

in post production, turning it into little more than a soft porn film. Caligula was reported to have had brazen affairs with the wives of his allies and was alleged to have had incestuous relationships with his sisters. Biographies of his peers and family around this time seem to disprove incest, but let’s not let the facts get in the way of a salacious rumour.

Caligula may have had a legendary sexual appetite, but he was an innovator and, some would say, a visionary who has been misunderstood. ‘Bunga Bunga’ The Nemi ships are sometimes referred to as ‘party boats’, as they were thought to have been where the emperor’s legendary orgies took place. But why would anyone go to such lengths to build such enormous vessels on a small, landlocked body of water? The answer probably lies in the desire for fertility. Caligula’s upbringing was unique, in that he grew up in an Egyptian household where he learned about communal families. In Caligula’s mind, it was nothing more than practical to hold mass impregnation rites, to ensure that all fertile women would fall pregnant simultaneously, ensuring that expectant mothers would still be able to work the harvest.

And where better than to stage this early forerunner of the ‘bunga bunga’ party? In a temple on the very lake of the goddess of fertility, of course.