Caligula's Hidden Legacy

New discoveries beneath the Vatican reveal the grand designs of Caligula. Beyond the legend of a mad tyrant emerges a ruler driven by ambition-building colossal aqueducts, transporting the Vatican obelisk from Egypt, and staging feats of engineering that defied nature. This episode reconsiders Caligula as a visionary determined to reshape Rome in his own image.

At the heart of a volcanic lake near Rome lay one of antiquity's greatest mysteries: Caligula's vast pleasure ships. Known as the Ships of Nemi, these floating palaces vanished for centuries before a dramatic 20th-century excavation under Benito Mussolini brought them to light. Their opulence and scale reveal the spectacle and symbolism behind an emperor's quest for divine power.