Richest athlete in history earned $15bn in deadly races with 300,000 fans at world’s greatest stadium
Michael Jordan is often touted as the richest athlete of all time with a staggering net worth of $3.8 billion.
The NBA great made just $90 million on the court, per Forbes, but showed incredible business savvy to create one of the world’s most recognized brands.
MJ truly changed the game, but his achievements pale into insignificance when compared to Gaius Appuleius Diocles.
Born in what is now northern Portugal, the athlete was likely illiterate but rose to the top of his sport at the height of the world’s greatest empire.
Diocles competed in chariot racing — a brutal sport which claimed the lives of countless competitors that was almost as vicious at the events at the Colosseum.
World’s biggest stadium is double the size of any existing arena
It all took place at the Circus Maximus — a custom-built arena that was 2,037 ft long and 387 ft wide.
The biggest stadium ever, it could fit up to 300,000 baying fans — around five times the size of its more famous cousin, just half a mile away.
Chariot racing was big business in an empire the size of which the world had never seen.
Drivers wore a leather helmet, shin guards, and chest protector, while carrying a curved knife to free themselves from the reins if they fell or slash at opponents.
The did seven laps of the track and the surviving racers were given prizes if they finished in the top three.
Diocles was unusual in that he lived to retirement, hanging up his reins at “42 years, 7 months, and 23 days” as “champion of all charioteers.”
He won 1462 of 4257 team events that he competed in and triumphed in 1064 singles races, representing three of the four factions — the original sports franchises — over a 24-year career.
Thanks to a stone inscription, we know exactly how much he earned over his lifetime, 35,863,120 sestertii.
Seeing Tiger Woods crowned as the world’s first $1 billion athlete around 2010, Dr. Peter Struck — an associate professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania — decided to do some digging.
He found that Diocles’ earnings could have supported the entire Roman army for a fifth of a year and by comparing that to the budget of the US Military, worked out the the legendary racer made $15 billion in today’s money in an article for Lapham’s Quarterly.
Struck called Circus Maximus “the beating heart at the center of the empire” and the athletes who took to the track were its blood.
No sporting great comes without an army of doubters, and Diocles was no exception.
His singles victories fell well short of Scorpus’ 2,048 and Pompeius Musclosus’ 3,559.
University of Louisville scholar Professor Robert B. Kebric has gone as far to accuse him of chasing money over glory by appearing in “bigger races” to maximize his earnings.
“[Greed] is not limited … to the modern period,” Struck explained. “That’s not the case. In fact, it’s an underlying human phenomenon.
“People always want to have social capital, the respect of their peers, more of that is better. And they want to have money, and more of that is better. And I don’t know of a society in which that’s not the case.”
Diocles is believed to have passed away not long after retirement just to the east of Rome.
The home where he made his name had fallen into ruin by the 6th century, which may partly explain why Russell Crowe played a gladiator instead of a chariot racer with the Colosseum’s imposing walls helping modern eyes evoke humanity’s bloodthirsty past.
Over the centuries, flooding buried many of the lower levels and the area was later used as a market garden, quarry, and gas works.
It has since been restored to something of its former glory, but the sheer scale of the site and significant waterlogging has hampered efforts.
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