January 3, 2026 • 30 mins
Today, most people probably don't remember the career of once-famous charioteer Gaius Appuleius Diocles -- however, in his day we was a cultural icon, one of the most famous athletes in Rome. Join the guys as they explore the story Diocles and trace one professor's quest to figure out exactly how much cash Diocles made in modern terms.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we are back with this week's classic episode. Guys. Recently,
I went with our pale Ramsey Yun from earlier to
watch a Hawks game nice here in Atlanta. Yeah, it's
we were at Phillips. So it's just it's a great time,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh I I I love I love calling it the
old the old name against somebody.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I still think of it.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I still I still call it Phillips myself.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I did this just the other day. Well. The thing is,
you know, we're we're fans of live sporting events, even
if you don't know much about sports or you're not
into you know, watching it on the television. Uh, it's
a good.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hang, it's it's it's good people watching even if you're
not into you know, the sports watching part of it.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yet Snacks, you got all kinds of great acts in
between the game as well.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I love a parade, you know. Oh yeah yeah, margin
Breton Circuses. It is fun to participate in that continuum
of history. Ah. God, who could forget about Creed?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I keep trying, I keep trying. They right, let you
friget it up next. We won't forget about Creed. Uh,
and we won't forget about this classic episode where we
asked ourselves who was the highest paid athlete in history?
And I gotta tell you, guys, there are a lot
(01:19):
of athletes who are pros who don't make a ton
of money. So let's true.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, well that's true. Uh. And of course we are
talking about a at the time in ancient Rome, an
absolute rock star of an athlete, a chariot tear by
the name of Gaius Apulius Diocles, who this is like,
this is the reason the inflation calculator of this made
a heap of coin, being quite the showboat.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So join us as we embark on a classic episode.
It's a special one for none other than our super
producer Max, who knows way more about sports than we
ever will. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. In confession,
(02:28):
I believe that I may have the perfect socks for
today's episode. There's some socks that a friend of mine
got me from his travels in Japan, and they have
separations in the fabric for the toes. I feel much
more agile than I would be wearing just normal socks.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Ben, So they're like Ninja socks.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, that's that's the way to put up. Yeah, it's
like the division for the Sandals picture every Western film
you've seen in the nineties, or something that featured ninjas.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, so I've got the I've got these. Uh, it's weird.
I took my shoes off and showed, uh, showed you
and our super producer, Casey Pegram these socks before we
hit the air. I feel somewhat more athletic in these.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, Ben, we are in a tiny shipping container type box.
Did you put your shoes back on?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah? Yeah, you can tell Nol, you can tell that
I put my shoes back on. I think I think
being in a small area with your shoes off like
that in a work environment, it would be kind of rude.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
No, it's poor. It's poor podcast etiquette, to be sure.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, like loudly eating or something.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
My gosh, Ben, are you being passive aggressive to me
about I loud on Mike eating.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
No, you're not eating something.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I'm not right now. But you know, I've been known
to have a snack occasionally, but I try to do
it off Mike.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You usually do it when we're not on air.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That's true. That's a good point. Although I got to
say sometimes I find it charming when when a podcaster
has a little snack on the air. I think it's
about personal choice, personal preference.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So back to this idea. I am not a professional athlete,
and you and I know each other pretty well, you
are currently not a professional athlete.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
No, I'm barely a professional anything.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
We're barely professional podcasters, right.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I actually updated my Instagram bio to be a semi
pro podcast geek, so that's what I consider my safe
semi pro.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
There you go. We do know that the world of
professional athleticism is obviously an enormous, enormous deal. It's a
huge industry. Billions and billions of dollars are spent every year,
and billions of dollars are generated every year through various
(04:42):
athletic endeavors around the world. And for Peak behind the
Curtain is the three of us record today's episode of
Ridiculous History. We are on the verge of two very
big and unusual things for our fair metropolis of Atlanta.
The first is a death, that's the super Bowl, and
the second is a possible storm, a snowstorm.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So we're looking for the snow apocalypse super Bowl traffic
jam coming our way pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right, which became a Facebook event that a lot of
people in town checked in on, right, did you do that?
Not yet? So we started thinking about the world of
professional athletes, and we kicked around the idea of maybe
doing the history of Super Bowls, which could be a
cool notion for a future episode. But we also asked
(05:35):
ourselves a surprisingly fascinating question, who was the highest paid
athlete not just this year, but in history.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, it's true. And it turns out that somebody else,
someone with a little bit more of a historical pedigree
than we have, a guy by the name of doctor
Peter Struck, who's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
In an article he wrote for Lapham's Quarterly, Struck went
into great detail about his discovery that turns out, the
highest paid athlete of all time was not like a
(06:07):
footballer or a basketballer. Wasn't you know some some football player.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Wasn't Michael Jordan, wasn't Joe Montana.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Joe Montana.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's a football player, that's true.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I remember him from from video games mainly.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I like he he had. He was known for his
effective but just very ugly throws.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
But he had a big old arm. Right, he was
like an arm guy.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Most of them do. There are very few.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Peyton manning.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He's a he's a good he's worth a lot of money,
tinys and then the refrigerator.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
But no, none of those guys. Turns out it was
a I'm gonna say, charioteer.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Mm hmm, yeah, a charioteer named Gaus Appolius Diocles. Well done, well,
we'll probably shift around in that in that pronunciation. Times. Uh.
This is a very very interesting guy. He was from
an area of what is now modern day Spain and Portugal.
(07:06):
He was most likely illiterate, but man, his chariot game
was on fire. So there's an inscription set up in
the city of Rome that was originally created in one
forty six CE or AD, however you prefer, and it
tells us exactly how much this charioteer from the province
(07:29):
of Lusitania earned during his oh what was it in
old twenty four years as an athlete as a charioteer.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yes, And let's not sweep under the rug the fact
that that is an awful long time to survive in
such an intense and brutal and strenuous and dangerous for
even spectators, let alone the people right in the thick
of it, profession I mean, we're talking like these chariots
being drawn by up to ten horses. He had like
the reins tied around his way, you know, and I
(08:01):
can imagine a mishap, you know, tearing him limb from limb.
But no, he was able to maintain this career twenty
four years, which is, oh gosh, at least four times
the length I would say of an average you know,
football or basketball player's career.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, even in these our modern days, ongoing studies show
us that being an athlete can be tremendously damaging to
the body and punishing to the mind, especially when you
get in the world of boxing in US football, which
you know, leave the door wide open to concussions.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, you know, and I just kind of pulled that
out of my ear. But it's about Apparently, according to
Business Insider, the average span of an NBA basketball player
is about four point eight years.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Right, right, It's true. It's now, this can be longer
for some individuals, and of course it can be longer
in some sports, right, some Olympic sports, you may have
a longer lifespan, But professionally speaking again, we are at
our best only humans. So this guy is doing a
(09:10):
tremendous job. Back in his time as a charioteer. Will
what exactly would his would his sport have been comprised?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Well, like I said, he would have been piloting a
I guess a two wheeled chariot, right, How many wheels
around a chariot? Is it four? I think I pictured
it as being reared back on two wheels, two wheels
with a team of horses. I said, up to ten
reins used to kind of encourage them to go faster
or slow up, And like I said, he actually had
(09:43):
them tied around his body so he could use his
whole body to kind of control the horses.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And he was racing racing ye specifically, and dirty tricks
in chariot racing, I guess I think of maybe cartoon
examples of chariot racing where all of a sudden, like
one of the wheels would have like a blade on
it or something like that, and they'd kind of go
up close to the other participant and use that blade
to kind of grind up at their wheel.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And I think people would stop at nothing to defeat
the competition, no matter what it took, right.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, And chariot racing was a huge, huge deal. It
was bigger than NASCAR is now. The classes would be
divided primarily by how many horses were pulling the chariot.
A two horse team, a four horse team, a six
horse team. The earliest account of a chariot race occurs
(10:32):
in Homer's description of the funeral of Patrick Less. These
races were one of the big ticket items of the
ancient Olympic Games. They would happen during religious festivals. Essentially,
civilizations at the time viewed chariot races as a really
cool thing to add to almost any public events. You
(10:53):
know what I mean. It's like a city wide festival
or contest. Normally, these chariot races would proceed thusly. There
would be four to six different chariots they would compete
in a single race, and the race would usually be
around seven laps around what was called the circus, the
(11:14):
circus maximus. These chariots, we should emphasize, were very light affairs,
because you know, you wanted to get the maximum power
and the minimum amount of weight. This also means that
they were super fragile, so were a collision to occur
you were up the wrong creek without a paddle.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. And to that end, most of the folks that
piloted these chariots only lived till about twenty four years old,
whereas Diocles retired which is very unusual at the ripe
old age of forty two, at which point he was
worth a whole lot of money.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Doctor Struck found that Diocles's total earnings would have equated
to roughly fifteen billion dollars in modern terms, fifteen billion
with a bee. You can also see another great write
up of this in History Collection. There's an article by
(12:12):
Alexander Mettings that we would recommend this. This is strange
because these were all net earnings too. The charioteer didn't
have to pay promoters, didn't have to pay you know,
a marketing team or support as I don't know, entourage
or shell out cash for sponsorship. He probably had it
(12:34):
pretty good. You know, what would what would he have
done personally with that? And how did Professor Struck figure
out this number?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
On that inscription Ben that you mentioned, it has his
earnings in the currency of the time, which is cestersche
and that would have been thirty five million, eight hundred
and sixty three thousand, one hundred and twenty and struck
figured out that for the time that would have been
enough to buy grain to feed the entirety of Rome
(13:05):
for one year, and also was about five times higher
a salary than any of the highest paid officials in
the land, and also could have paid for every single
Roman soldier for a fifth of a year. And that
was when Rome was at its peak in terms of
its military might.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, running from Scotland all the way in the far north,
Egypt in the south, Spain in the west, and the
Euphrates in the east. He clearly busted his hump for
this money. And to compare him to let's say the
highest paid governmental authorities, in two months, he would earn
(13:47):
what Rome's highest paid provincial governor could expect to earn
in one year. And there was a great amount of
risk with this. We mentioned the horse's reins being tied
physically to the athlete. When those fragile vehicles collided with something,
it often resulted in the death or serious injury of
(14:08):
a charioteer because the horses kept going.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's right, there's a lot of trampling and ben we
were trying to get to the conversion method. We always
plug numbers into our handy dandy inflation calculator. Here on
ridiculous history. But those figures that I mentioned earlier were
on are on the Stone inscription the idea of being
able to bankroll the Roman army for a fifth of
(14:31):
a year. So Struck was able to extrapol a a
modern estimate based on what it would cost to pay
for our military. So it's obviously not a perfect one
to one, but it would have been a pretty good
educated guess absolutely. And oh you know what we should do.
We should read the actual inscription. So here it goes.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
In the English translation, it begins with Gaius Appolius Diocles,
charioteer of the Red statele Elusitanian Spaniard by birth age
forty two years, seven months, twenty three days, and the
monument says he raced four horse chariots for twenty four years,
so we get some valuable numbers there. We also know
(15:15):
that given his fame, there was a snowball effect. He
started turning down races, you know what I mean. It
had to be worth his time, so he would race
in the most high end, high profile races that had
the most potential to win a large amount of money.
He started in this, according to the inscription, in four
(15:38):
two hundred and fifty seven races. He won one four
hundred and sixty three times, and the inscription says that
translates to him winning ninety two major prizes. Of these,
thirty two were of thirty thousand cisterci, three of them
with six horse teams, two in races with six horse chariots,
one with a seven horse chariot he tied with because
(16:03):
they had these different factions. Right, he was a red stable, right,
and he tied a blue stable ten times, a green
stable ninety one. And this inscription. The thing that's invaluable
about it is that it maps out his stats the
same way that a baseball card, back when those were
(16:24):
a big deal. A baseball card would map out the
stats of your favorite your favorite baseball player.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And would these have been like alongside gladiator events or
would those have been like two different things, because I
feel like this would have almost been like a like
the gladiator thing might have been the main event. This
might have been like a side event, or were they
completely separate. I'm just wondering, you know, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
No, there's probably a situation again where in there were
large public events that involved this stuff, and there were
definitely chariots in gladiatorial combat.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
It as right, right, Sometimes there could have been probably
gladiator matches on chariot where they're like coming at each
other in weapons as they pass. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So let's go back for a second to the earlier
comparison in the world of animation and cartoons, right, how
exaggerated or how accurate was this depiction of chariot racing.
It turns out that it's not completely off base. It's
not completely cartoonish or made up, because these knives on
(17:28):
the wheels were a real thing, and the charioteers would
attempt to ram their rivals into the median at the
center of the track called the spinnet, and then they
would come crashing into these hairpin turns they also, I
thought you would find just the pure spectacle of this fascinating.
(17:48):
During races, it was very common for the three chariots
representing each faction to team up with one another to
bring down a very unpopular rival or a very strong
one like Diocles, and bring down in this sense means
literally grind them into the dust. This violence is part
(18:10):
of why chariot races were so incredibly popular. Like, think
about how many people love the Super Bowl. I'm sure
there's an income bracket to get a ticket because those
things are thousands of dollars, But millions and millions of
people in this country watch the Super Bowl and pull
for a team they love, regardless of, you know, their
(18:31):
individual demographic. Chariot races were the same way, but before television.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
That's true, and you can also probably expect to see
someone get really horribly injured, you know, And ideally that's
less the case with modern American football, or they're trying
to plase that out and make it less of an attraction.
But I still think that's largely what people not to
like taste blood. But it's all about the stakes, right,
(18:57):
what's the point of like being all in with this
if there aren't like real stakes, you don't feel like
these people have something to lose beyond just like glory
or being shamed or whatever.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's a that's a great question. I wrote a thing
a long time ago that wasn't wasn't part of how
stuff works, about the social role of sports as a
substitute for actual warfare. It hits all the same notes
of tribalism, you know what I mean, and identifying with
something larger than one's self. This is making me miss
(19:28):
car stuff, nol because we have to mention these chariot
races were also dangerous for the audience because the rivalry
went beyond lighthearted competition. It became as high risk as
the races themselves. Think of soccer hooligans. Okay, there were
chariot hooligans, charioteer hooligans. One guy learned about the death
(19:53):
of one of the best charioteers in the Red Faction,
and he threw himself on the funeral pyre to be
burned alongside his sports idol.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Dude' that's like sports as a stand in for not
only warfare, but like religion.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah, good call. In sixty nine AD or CE,
the Emperor Vitelius had some commoners executed because they talked
trash about the Blue Faction and the emperor loved them.
He was personally offended, so he had them put to death.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And it also reminds me of sort of the early
days of auto racing, like the Lamon. Remember we did
an episode on that where it was absolutely very dangerous
just physically to be a spectator, because if there was
a fiery crash, bits of flaming debris could go shooting
out into the crowd, potentially injuring or even killing people.
There were several accounts of folks being killed at those races,
(20:45):
and such is the case for these chariot races. You know,
you'd have the potential for people in the stands getting
hit by, you know, pieces of flying off of the chariots.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
The twenty four hour la Mon. Yeah, we have a
ridiculous history on that. We have something about the history
of the race, and he's on car stuff too. If
you'd like to learn more about the oh my gosh,
the utterly horrific accidents that happened in those races. We
(21:15):
have to say, you know, we have to speculate a
bit on the psychology of the audience, because maybe that
was part of the appeal to be right down there
in the thick of it, as close to the chariots
as possible, despite the risk, or to have this social
identification that was so strong that you would want to
physically harm someone because they were a green and you
(21:38):
were a blue. It's strange too, because Diocles was chasing
glory along with money, but he was definitely chasing the glory,
chasing the fame because he switched his factions. He began
his career as a White and then he moved over
to the Greens. Because of all the teams, the Greens
(22:01):
and the Blues were the most successful and the most popular,
right and think of them like the New England Patriots
if you're a football fan. But then he made a switch.
He made a switch through a plot twist. You see,
he transferred to the less popular Red faction. And this
would have made pretty good financial sense to him, maybe
(22:21):
have given him some more time to shine. You would
have been a bigger fish and a smaller pond. Because
you see Diocles, when he was on the Green team,
he was just one of many very popular charioteers. You know,
he was possibly a footnote in history, but he could
become a main character in history if he went with
(22:43):
the Reds. And that's what he did. And despite what
you might assume, he was not the He was not
the charioteer who won the most races. He just got
the most money. As Professor Robert B. Keybreak points out
in the of Diocles Roman charioteer. His victories paled in
comparison to those of other charioteers, such as Scorpus, who
(23:07):
had two thousand and forty eight victories, or Pompeius most closest,
who had three thousand, five hundred and fifty nine victories.
But he made it. He won the game, right, he retired,
As we said, he lived a pretty sedate, fun life
after that, you know, from he was born in approximately
(23:28):
one oh four CE, and he passed away sometime after
one forty six CE. But I believe his death was
relatively peaceful or unremarked upon.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, especially given the profession. Right, so by that point
he I think it was just kind of unusual for
anyone in such a violent, inherently violent line of work
to be able to retire. And even though he didn't
win the most, maybe that's because he he was looking
he was playing the long game, right, ben. I mean,
he was like protecting himself and maybe not being quite
(24:01):
as reckless, but he certainly knew how to show off
and have some flourishes. He had his own signature style,
almost like you know, tiger style or like something out
of like a street fighter game. And it was called
the strong final dash. Oh nice, because he could just
pull out all the stops and the end. That maybe
means he would bide his time a little bit and
(24:21):
stay out of harm's way and like protect himself. But
then at the end he would like come up ahead
of the pack. But yeah, it's crazy, man, that he
was able to just relaxingly drift away as an old
man of what was he like fifty years old?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
He passed away on his estate in the Italian countryside
near modern day Palestrina, and he lived out the remainder
of his days in a quiet life. Live in the
quiet life. You know. He had a son and a
daughter who later erected a memorial to him at the site,
(24:55):
and there he remains in history as the high highest
paid athlete of all time. But you know what, my
spidey sense is telling me that several of our fellow
ridiculous historians are having a come on you guys moment
when you say, okay, so Diocles was really balling back
(25:15):
in the days of ancient Rome, but who is the
world's highest paid athlete? Now? It turns out we do
have the answer or an answer because some of this
depends on how you calculate it. Casey, help us out
with a drum roll here, if you would be so kind.
The highest paid athlete in the modern world is.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It's Floyd Mayweather, who's an American boxer, problematic figure. He's
gotten in some trouble with the law, but he's managed
to exceed the total of the other of himself and
the other two top earning athletes in the world, who
are Lebron James, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. And that
(26:04):
those three had a combined earning total of two hundred
and fifty nine million dollars for a season's worth of work.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, and that also includes like endorsements and partnerships and
things like that. And this is reported by Forbes magazine.
But Mayweather knocked all of that out of the water
with something that happened very recently.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Right, that's correct, that's correct. He earned the top spot.
You said, a little north of two hundred and fifty
mili total for those other three. Between June first, twenty
seventeen and June first, twenty eighteen, Floyd Mayweather earned two
hundred and seventy five million dollars. This comes to us
from a Great Money dot Com article by Mike Ayers.
(26:46):
Here's the kicker. He earned that not across the year,
hearing that for one night of work when he fought
Connor McGregor on August twenty seventh, twenty eighteen. Add in
his total ten million dollars worth of additional endorsements and
we get up to two hundred and eighty five million.
(27:07):
This is not his first time topping the list. He
has topped at four times in the last seven years.
Of course, that's quite a princely sum. But all the
money in the world, still with our current level of
medical technology, will not help you fully recover from decades
(27:28):
of brutal concussions.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So you win some, you lose some, and at this
point still, according to doctors Struck, no one has beaten
the record that dioclets. The charioteer established way back in
ancient Rome. Makes you think, would you do a chariot race?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
No, man, the two wheel thing freaks me out.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I would totally do it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
You just it seems like it'd be so easy to
flip over. Those horses have to counterbalance that you and
the whole time, and if you lose the slack on
the reins. It seems like your whole front end would
go into the dirt, or if they reared up a
little too much, you'd flip over backwards. It just seems
like a fool's errand to me, sir.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I you know, I see where you're coming from. To
each their own, I think it would be a lot
of fun. So if you know where I could I
could just ride some chariots around. Please please let me
know you can. You can hit us on our Facebook
group Ridiculous Historians. You can hit me up on Instagram
directly at Ben Bowlin.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Surely there's some kind of chariot simulator you could try
before jumping full bore into the circus Maximus.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I want to go for the gusto man.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
All right, man, I respect that, I really do. You
can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider and
Ben I think you had a comic recommendation today.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I do have a comic recommendation today. I am a
fan of a comic series called Britannia, which studies the
story of someone named Antonius Axia, the the Empire's Finest.
You'll love this word, folks detectioner. He is applying scientific
scrutiny and rational thought to various mysteries, usually mysteries that
(29:14):
he is tasked with solving by the mad Emperor Nero.
It's a great read. It's highly recommended. Let us know
if you've read it and what you think about it.
In the meantime, of course, thank you for checking out
today's show, and thank you to Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
As always, thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Thanks to our amazing research associate Gabe, and thanks to
you Ben Bolin, my friend.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Hey, thanks to you, old Brown.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I got a question for you. Is this this comic
recommendation that's sort of an alternate historical account, kind of
like manifest destiny or one of those kind of.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Deals without all of the tinges of supernatural stuff. Yeah,
it's it's a mystery comic and it's well done.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Let us know what you and please be sure and
join us for the next episode of Ridiculous History. See
you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
And we are back with this week's classic episode. Guys. Recently,
I went with our pale Ramsey Yun from earlier to
watch a Hawks game nice here in Atlanta. Yeah, it's
we were at Phillips. So it's just it's a great time,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh I I I love I love calling it the
old the old name against somebody.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I still think of it.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I still I still call it Phillips myself.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I did this just the other day. Well. The thing is,
you know, we're we're fans of live sporting events, even
if you don't know much about sports or you're not
into you know, watching it on the television. Uh, it's
a good.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hang, it's it's it's good people watching even if you're
not into you know, the sports watching part of it.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yet Snacks, you got all kinds of great acts in
between the game as well.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I love a parade, you know. Oh yeah yeah, margin
Breton Circuses. It is fun to participate in that continuum
of history. Ah. God, who could forget about Creed?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I keep trying, I keep trying. They right, let you
friget it up next. We won't forget about Creed. Uh,
and we won't forget about this classic episode where we
asked ourselves who was the highest paid athlete in history?
And I gotta tell you, guys, there are a lot
(01:19):
of athletes who are pros who don't make a ton
of money. So let's true.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, well that's true. Uh. And of course we are
talking about a at the time in ancient Rome, an
absolute rock star of an athlete, a chariot tear by
the name of Gaius Apulius Diocles, who this is like,
this is the reason the inflation calculator of this made
a heap of coin, being quite the showboat.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So join us as we embark on a classic episode.
It's a special one for none other than our super
producer Max, who knows way more about sports than we
ever will. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. In confession,
(02:28):
I believe that I may have the perfect socks for
today's episode. There's some socks that a friend of mine
got me from his travels in Japan, and they have
separations in the fabric for the toes. I feel much
more agile than I would be wearing just normal socks.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Ben, So they're like Ninja socks.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, that's that's the way to put up. Yeah, it's
like the division for the Sandals picture every Western film
you've seen in the nineties, or something that featured ninjas.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, so I've got the I've got these. Uh, it's weird.
I took my shoes off and showed, uh, showed you
and our super producer, Casey Pegram these socks before we
hit the air. I feel somewhat more athletic in these.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, Ben, we are in a tiny shipping container type box.
Did you put your shoes back on?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah? Yeah, you can tell Nol, you can tell that
I put my shoes back on. I think I think
being in a small area with your shoes off like
that in a work environment, it would be kind of rude.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
No, it's poor. It's poor podcast etiquette, to be sure.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, like loudly eating or something.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
My gosh, Ben, are you being passive aggressive to me
about I loud on Mike eating.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
No, you're not eating something.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I'm not right now. But you know, I've been known
to have a snack occasionally, but I try to do
it off Mike.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You usually do it when we're not on air.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
That's true. That's a good point. Although I got to
say sometimes I find it charming when when a podcaster
has a little snack on the air. I think it's
about personal choice, personal preference.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So back to this idea. I am not a professional athlete,
and you and I know each other pretty well, you
are currently not a professional athlete.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
No, I'm barely a professional anything.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
We're barely professional podcasters, right.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I actually updated my Instagram bio to be a semi
pro podcast geek, so that's what I consider my safe
semi pro.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
There you go. We do know that the world of
professional athleticism is obviously an enormous, enormous deal. It's a
huge industry. Billions and billions of dollars are spent every year,
and billions of dollars are generated every year through various
(04:42):
athletic endeavors around the world. And for Peak behind the
Curtain is the three of us record today's episode of
Ridiculous History. We are on the verge of two very
big and unusual things for our fair metropolis of Atlanta.
The first is a death, that's the super Bowl, and
the second is a possible storm, a snowstorm.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So we're looking for the snow apocalypse super Bowl traffic
jam coming our way pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right, which became a Facebook event that a lot of
people in town checked in on, right, did you do that?
Not yet? So we started thinking about the world of
professional athletes, and we kicked around the idea of maybe
doing the history of Super Bowls, which could be a
cool notion for a future episode. But we also asked
(05:35):
ourselves a surprisingly fascinating question, who was the highest paid
athlete not just this year, but in history.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, it's true. And it turns out that somebody else,
someone with a little bit more of a historical pedigree
than we have, a guy by the name of doctor
Peter Struck, who's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
In an article he wrote for Lapham's Quarterly, Struck went
into great detail about his discovery that turns out, the
highest paid athlete of all time was not like a
(06:07):
footballer or a basketballer. Wasn't you know some some football player.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Wasn't Michael Jordan, wasn't Joe Montana.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Joe Montana.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's a football player, that's true.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I remember him from from video games mainly.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I like he he had. He was known for his
effective but just very ugly throws.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
But he had a big old arm. Right, he was
like an arm guy.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Most of them do. There are very few.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Peyton manning.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He's a he's a good he's worth a lot of money,
tinys and then the refrigerator.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
But no, none of those guys. Turns out it was
a I'm gonna say, charioteer.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Mm hmm, yeah, a charioteer named Gaus Appolius Diocles. Well done, well,
we'll probably shift around in that in that pronunciation. Times. Uh.
This is a very very interesting guy. He was from
an area of what is now modern day Spain and Portugal.
(07:06):
He was most likely illiterate, but man, his chariot game
was on fire. So there's an inscription set up in
the city of Rome that was originally created in one
forty six CE or AD, however you prefer, and it
tells us exactly how much this charioteer from the province
(07:29):
of Lusitania earned during his oh what was it in
old twenty four years as an athlete as a charioteer.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yes, And let's not sweep under the rug the fact
that that is an awful long time to survive in
such an intense and brutal and strenuous and dangerous for
even spectators, let alone the people right in the thick
of it, profession I mean, we're talking like these chariots
being drawn by up to ten horses. He had like
the reins tied around his way, you know, and I
(08:01):
can imagine a mishap, you know, tearing him limb from limb.
But no, he was able to maintain this career twenty
four years, which is, oh gosh, at least four times
the length I would say of an average you know,
football or basketball player's career.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, even in these our modern days, ongoing studies show
us that being an athlete can be tremendously damaging to
the body and punishing to the mind, especially when you
get in the world of boxing in US football, which
you know, leave the door wide open to concussions.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, you know, and I just kind of pulled that
out of my ear. But it's about Apparently, according to
Business Insider, the average span of an NBA basketball player
is about four point eight years.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Right, right, It's true. It's now, this can be longer
for some individuals, and of course it can be longer
in some sports, right, some Olympic sports, you may have
a longer lifespan, But professionally speaking again, we are at
our best only humans. So this guy is doing a
(09:10):
tremendous job. Back in his time as a charioteer. Will
what exactly would his would his sport have been comprised?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Well, like I said, he would have been piloting a
I guess a two wheeled chariot, right, How many wheels
around a chariot? Is it four? I think I pictured
it as being reared back on two wheels, two wheels
with a team of horses. I said, up to ten
reins used to kind of encourage them to go faster
or slow up, And like I said, he actually had
(09:43):
them tied around his body so he could use his
whole body to kind of control the horses.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And he was racing racing ye specifically, and dirty tricks
in chariot racing, I guess I think of maybe cartoon
examples of chariot racing where all of a sudden, like
one of the wheels would have like a blade on
it or something like that, and they'd kind of go
up close to the other participant and use that blade
to kind of grind up at their wheel.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And I think people would stop at nothing to defeat
the competition, no matter what it took, right.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, And chariot racing was a huge, huge deal. It
was bigger than NASCAR is now. The classes would be
divided primarily by how many horses were pulling the chariot.
A two horse team, a four horse team, a six
horse team. The earliest account of a chariot race occurs
(10:32):
in Homer's description of the funeral of Patrick Less. These
races were one of the big ticket items of the
ancient Olympic Games. They would happen during religious festivals. Essentially,
civilizations at the time viewed chariot races as a really
cool thing to add to almost any public events. You
(10:53):
know what I mean. It's like a city wide festival
or contest. Normally, these chariot races would proceed thusly. There
would be four to six different chariots they would compete
in a single race, and the race would usually be
around seven laps around what was called the circus, the
(11:14):
circus maximus. These chariots, we should emphasize, were very light affairs,
because you know, you wanted to get the maximum power
and the minimum amount of weight. This also means that
they were super fragile, so were a collision to occur
you were up the wrong creek without a paddle.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. And to that end, most of the folks that
piloted these chariots only lived till about twenty four years old,
whereas Diocles retired which is very unusual at the ripe
old age of forty two, at which point he was
worth a whole lot of money.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Doctor Struck found that Diocles's total earnings would have equated
to roughly fifteen billion dollars in modern terms, fifteen billion
with a bee. You can also see another great write
up of this in History Collection. There's an article by
(12:12):
Alexander Mettings that we would recommend this. This is strange
because these were all net earnings too. The charioteer didn't
have to pay promoters, didn't have to pay you know,
a marketing team or support as I don't know, entourage
or shell out cash for sponsorship. He probably had it
(12:34):
pretty good. You know, what would what would he have
done personally with that? And how did Professor Struck figure
out this number?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
On that inscription Ben that you mentioned, it has his
earnings in the currency of the time, which is cestersche
and that would have been thirty five million, eight hundred
and sixty three thousand, one hundred and twenty and struck
figured out that for the time that would have been
enough to buy grain to feed the entirety of Rome
(13:05):
for one year, and also was about five times higher
a salary than any of the highest paid officials in
the land, and also could have paid for every single
Roman soldier for a fifth of a year. And that
was when Rome was at its peak in terms of
its military might.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, running from Scotland all the way in the far north,
Egypt in the south, Spain in the west, and the
Euphrates in the east. He clearly busted his hump for
this money. And to compare him to let's say the
highest paid governmental authorities, in two months, he would earn
(13:47):
what Rome's highest paid provincial governor could expect to earn
in one year. And there was a great amount of
risk with this. We mentioned the horse's reins being tied
physically to the athlete. When those fragile vehicles collided with something,
it often resulted in the death or serious injury of
(14:08):
a charioteer because the horses kept going.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's right, there's a lot of trampling and ben we
were trying to get to the conversion method. We always
plug numbers into our handy dandy inflation calculator. Here on
ridiculous history. But those figures that I mentioned earlier were
on are on the Stone inscription the idea of being
able to bankroll the Roman army for a fifth of
(14:31):
a year. So Struck was able to extrapol a a
modern estimate based on what it would cost to pay
for our military. So it's obviously not a perfect one
to one, but it would have been a pretty good
educated guess absolutely. And oh you know what we should do.
We should read the actual inscription. So here it goes.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
In the English translation, it begins with Gaius Appolius Diocles,
charioteer of the Red statele Elusitanian Spaniard by birth age
forty two years, seven months, twenty three days, and the
monument says he raced four horse chariots for twenty four years,
so we get some valuable numbers there. We also know
(15:15):
that given his fame, there was a snowball effect. He
started turning down races, you know what I mean. It
had to be worth his time, so he would race
in the most high end, high profile races that had
the most potential to win a large amount of money.
He started in this, according to the inscription, in four
(15:38):
two hundred and fifty seven races. He won one four
hundred and sixty three times, and the inscription says that
translates to him winning ninety two major prizes. Of these,
thirty two were of thirty thousand cisterci, three of them
with six horse teams, two in races with six horse chariots,
one with a seven horse chariot he tied with because
(16:03):
they had these different factions. Right, he was a red stable, right,
and he tied a blue stable ten times, a green
stable ninety one. And this inscription. The thing that's invaluable
about it is that it maps out his stats the
same way that a baseball card, back when those were
(16:24):
a big deal. A baseball card would map out the
stats of your favorite your favorite baseball player.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And would these have been like alongside gladiator events or
would those have been like two different things, because I
feel like this would have almost been like a like
the gladiator thing might have been the main event. This
might have been like a side event, or were they
completely separate. I'm just wondering, you know, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
No, there's probably a situation again where in there were
large public events that involved this stuff, and there were
definitely chariots in gladiatorial combat.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
It as right, right, Sometimes there could have been probably
gladiator matches on chariot where they're like coming at each
other in weapons as they pass. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So let's go back for a second to the earlier
comparison in the world of animation and cartoons, right, how
exaggerated or how accurate was this depiction of chariot racing.
It turns out that it's not completely off base. It's
not completely cartoonish or made up, because these knives on
(17:28):
the wheels were a real thing, and the charioteers would
attempt to ram their rivals into the median at the
center of the track called the spinnet, and then they
would come crashing into these hairpin turns they also, I
thought you would find just the pure spectacle of this fascinating.
(17:48):
During races, it was very common for the three chariots
representing each faction to team up with one another to
bring down a very unpopular rival or a very strong
one like Diocles, and bring down in this sense means
literally grind them into the dust. This violence is part
(18:10):
of why chariot races were so incredibly popular. Like, think
about how many people love the Super Bowl. I'm sure
there's an income bracket to get a ticket because those
things are thousands of dollars, But millions and millions of
people in this country watch the Super Bowl and pull
for a team they love, regardless of, you know, their
(18:31):
individual demographic. Chariot races were the same way, but before television.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
That's true, and you can also probably expect to see
someone get really horribly injured, you know, And ideally that's
less the case with modern American football, or they're trying
to plase that out and make it less of an attraction.
But I still think that's largely what people not to
like taste blood. But it's all about the stakes, right,
(18:57):
what's the point of like being all in with this
if there aren't like real stakes, you don't feel like
these people have something to lose beyond just like glory
or being shamed or whatever.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That's a that's a great question. I wrote a thing
a long time ago that wasn't wasn't part of how
stuff works, about the social role of sports as a
substitute for actual warfare. It hits all the same notes
of tribalism, you know what I mean, and identifying with
something larger than one's self. This is making me miss
(19:28):
car stuff, nol because we have to mention these chariot
races were also dangerous for the audience because the rivalry
went beyond lighthearted competition. It became as high risk as
the races themselves. Think of soccer hooligans. Okay, there were
chariot hooligans, charioteer hooligans. One guy learned about the death
(19:53):
of one of the best charioteers in the Red Faction,
and he threw himself on the funeral pyre to be
burned alongside his sports idol.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Dude' that's like sports as a stand in for not
only warfare, but like religion.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah, good call. In sixty nine AD or CE,
the Emperor Vitelius had some commoners executed because they talked
trash about the Blue Faction and the emperor loved them.
He was personally offended, so he had them put to death.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And it also reminds me of sort of the early
days of auto racing, like the Lamon. Remember we did
an episode on that where it was absolutely very dangerous
just physically to be a spectator, because if there was
a fiery crash, bits of flaming debris could go shooting
out into the crowd, potentially injuring or even killing people.
There were several accounts of folks being killed at those races,
(20:45):
and such is the case for these chariot races. You know,
you'd have the potential for people in the stands getting
hit by, you know, pieces of flying off of the chariots.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
The twenty four hour la Mon. Yeah, we have a
ridiculous history on that. We have something about the history
of the race, and he's on car stuff too. If
you'd like to learn more about the oh my gosh,
the utterly horrific accidents that happened in those races. We
(21:15):
have to say, you know, we have to speculate a
bit on the psychology of the audience, because maybe that
was part of the appeal to be right down there
in the thick of it, as close to the chariots
as possible, despite the risk, or to have this social
identification that was so strong that you would want to
physically harm someone because they were a green and you
(21:38):
were a blue. It's strange too, because Diocles was chasing
glory along with money, but he was definitely chasing the glory,
chasing the fame because he switched his factions. He began
his career as a White and then he moved over
to the Greens. Because of all the teams, the Greens
(22:01):
and the Blues were the most successful and the most popular,
right and think of them like the New England Patriots
if you're a football fan. But then he made a switch.
He made a switch through a plot twist. You see,
he transferred to the less popular Red faction. And this
would have made pretty good financial sense to him, maybe
(22:21):
have given him some more time to shine. You would
have been a bigger fish and a smaller pond. Because
you see Diocles, when he was on the Green team,
he was just one of many very popular charioteers. You know,
he was possibly a footnote in history, but he could
become a main character in history if he went with
(22:43):
the Reds. And that's what he did. And despite what
you might assume, he was not the He was not
the charioteer who won the most races. He just got
the most money. As Professor Robert B. Keybreak points out
in the of Diocles Roman charioteer. His victories paled in
comparison to those of other charioteers, such as Scorpus, who
(23:07):
had two thousand and forty eight victories, or Pompeius most closest,
who had three thousand, five hundred and fifty nine victories.
But he made it. He won the game, right, he retired,
As we said, he lived a pretty sedate, fun life
after that, you know, from he was born in approximately
(23:28):
one oh four CE, and he passed away sometime after
one forty six CE. But I believe his death was
relatively peaceful or unremarked upon.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, especially given the profession. Right, so by that point
he I think it was just kind of unusual for
anyone in such a violent, inherently violent line of work
to be able to retire. And even though he didn't
win the most, maybe that's because he he was looking
he was playing the long game, right, ben. I mean,
he was like protecting himself and maybe not being quite
(24:01):
as reckless, but he certainly knew how to show off
and have some flourishes. He had his own signature style,
almost like you know, tiger style or like something out
of like a street fighter game. And it was called
the strong final dash. Oh nice, because he could just
pull out all the stops and the end. That maybe
means he would bide his time a little bit and
(24:21):
stay out of harm's way and like protect himself. But
then at the end he would like come up ahead
of the pack. But yeah, it's crazy, man, that he
was able to just relaxingly drift away as an old
man of what was he like fifty years old?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
He passed away on his estate in the Italian countryside
near modern day Palestrina, and he lived out the remainder
of his days in a quiet life. Live in the
quiet life. You know. He had a son and a
daughter who later erected a memorial to him at the site,
(24:55):
and there he remains in history as the high highest
paid athlete of all time. But you know what, my
spidey sense is telling me that several of our fellow
ridiculous historians are having a come on you guys moment
when you say, okay, so Diocles was really balling back
(25:15):
in the days of ancient Rome, but who is the
world's highest paid athlete? Now? It turns out we do
have the answer or an answer because some of this
depends on how you calculate it. Casey, help us out
with a drum roll here, if you would be so kind.
The highest paid athlete in the modern world is.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It's Floyd Mayweather, who's an American boxer, problematic figure. He's
gotten in some trouble with the law, but he's managed
to exceed the total of the other of himself and
the other two top earning athletes in the world, who
are Lebron James, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. And that
(26:04):
those three had a combined earning total of two hundred
and fifty nine million dollars for a season's worth of work.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, and that also includes like endorsements and partnerships and
things like that. And this is reported by Forbes magazine.
But Mayweather knocked all of that out of the water
with something that happened very recently.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Right, that's correct, that's correct. He earned the top spot.
You said, a little north of two hundred and fifty
mili total for those other three. Between June first, twenty
seventeen and June first, twenty eighteen, Floyd Mayweather earned two
hundred and seventy five million dollars. This comes to us
from a Great Money dot Com article by Mike Ayers.
(26:46):
Here's the kicker. He earned that not across the year,
hearing that for one night of work when he fought
Connor McGregor on August twenty seventh, twenty eighteen. Add in
his total ten million dollars worth of additional endorsements and
we get up to two hundred and eighty five million.
(27:07):
This is not his first time topping the list. He
has topped at four times in the last seven years.
Of course, that's quite a princely sum. But all the
money in the world, still with our current level of
medical technology, will not help you fully recover from decades
(27:28):
of brutal concussions.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So you win some, you lose some, and at this
point still, according to doctors Struck, no one has beaten
the record that dioclets. The charioteer established way back in
ancient Rome. Makes you think, would you do a chariot race?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
No, man, the two wheel thing freaks me out.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I would totally do it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
You just it seems like it'd be so easy to
flip over. Those horses have to counterbalance that you and
the whole time, and if you lose the slack on
the reins. It seems like your whole front end would
go into the dirt, or if they reared up a
little too much, you'd flip over backwards. It just seems
like a fool's errand to me, sir.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I you know, I see where you're coming from. To
each their own, I think it would be a lot
of fun. So if you know where I could I
could just ride some chariots around. Please please let me
know you can. You can hit us on our Facebook
group Ridiculous Historians. You can hit me up on Instagram
directly at Ben Bowlin.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Surely there's some kind of chariot simulator you could try
before jumping full bore into the circus Maximus.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I want to go for the gusto man.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
All right, man, I respect that, I really do. You
can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider and
Ben I think you had a comic recommendation today.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I do have a comic recommendation today. I am a
fan of a comic series called Britannia, which studies the
story of someone named Antonius Axia, the the Empire's Finest.
You'll love this word, folks detectioner. He is applying scientific
scrutiny and rational thought to various mysteries, usually mysteries that
(29:14):
he is tasked with solving by the mad Emperor Nero.
It's a great read. It's highly recommended. Let us know
if you've read it and what you think about it.
In the meantime, of course, thank you for checking out
today's show, and thank you to Casey Pegram.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
As always, thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Thanks to our amazing research associate Gabe, and thanks to
you Ben Bolin, my friend.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Hey, thanks to you, old Brown.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I got a question for you. Is this this comic
recommendation that's sort of an alternate historical account, kind of
like manifest destiny or one of those kind of.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Deals without all of the tinges of supernatural stuff. Yeah,
it's it's a mystery comic and it's well done.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Let us know what you and please be sure and
join us for the next episode of Ridiculous History. See
you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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