CLASSIC: Who was the highest paid athlete in history?

Summary

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Ridiculous History – "CLASSIC: Who was the highest paid athlete in history?"

Podcast by iHeartPodcasts – January 3, 2026 | Hosts: Ben Bolan & Noel Brown

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Episode Overview

This episode takes a deep dive into the world of ancient sports to answer a surprising question: who is the highest paid athlete in history? The hosts explore the life and times of Gaius Appuleius Diocles—a Roman charioteer who, adjusted for inflation, out-earned today’s sporting superstars. Through historical anecdotes, expert studies, and lively banter, Ben and Noel unravel the spectacle and absurdity of wealth, risk, and fame in sports, then and now.

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Main Discussion Points

1. Setting the Scene: Modern Sports and Historical Context

• The episode opens with banter about live sporting events and the appeal of being in the crowd, even for non-sports fans. (00:09–00:46)
• Ben and Noel reminisce about Atlanta’s sports venues and the shared human experience of watching games with “bread and circuses” for entertainment. (00:48)

2. Introducing the Central Question

• The hosts ask, “Who was the highest paid athlete in history?” noting that most pro athletes—even today—do not reach elite earning status. (01:04–01:24)
• The episode is dedicated to their producer, Max, “who knows way more about sports than we ever will.” (01:47)

3. Unveiling the Answer: Gaius Appuleius Diocles, Charioteer Rockstar

• According to Dr. Peter Struck (University of Pennsylvania), the answer isn’t a modern footballer or basketball player, but a Roman charioteer: Gaius Appuleius Diocles. (06:48)
• Diocles’ career spanned an impressive 24 years—a “brutal and dangerous” era when most charioteers died young. (08:41)
• The dangers: racing lightweight, fragile chariots, with reins tied around the waist—accidents could be “tremendously damaging to the body and punishing to the mind.” (09:18–09:50)

4. Chariot Racing: The Ancient Extreme Sport

• Chariot racing was “bigger than NASCAR is now”—the main event at religious festivals and citywide contests. (11:15)
• Descriptions of the Circus Maximus and how the races worked: up to 6 chariots, seven laps around the course, often with teams and “dirty tricks” like blades on wheels. (10:53–12:36)
• Most drivers died by age 24, but Diocles retired at 42—a remarkable feat. (12:36)

5. The Money: Just How Rich Was Diocles?

• According to Dr. Struck, Diocles’ total winnings would equal about $15 billion today. (“15 billion with a B.”) (17:57)
• His prizes included enough to “feed all of Rome for a year,” and his income dwarfed that of top officials or even the Roman army’s payroll. (18:46–19:28)
• “[In] two months, he would earn what Rome’s highest paid provincial governor could expect to earn in one year.” (19:28)

Quote:

“Doctor Strzok found that Diocles’ total earnings would have equated to roughly $15 billion in modern terms. 15 billion with a B.” — Ben Bolan (17:57)

6. Stats, Career, and Tactics

• The stone monument in Rome details Diocles’ stats: 4,257 races, 1,463 wins, 92 major prizes—sometimes against overwhelming odds or in less popular teams for higher take-home pay. (20:50–21:50)
• Diocles switched factions for better career prospects—leaving powerful teams for smaller ones to become a “bigger fish in a smaller pond.” (32:20)
• His signature tactic: the “strong final dash”—conserving energy until the end for a dramatic victory. (35:22)

7. The Spectacle and Violence of Chariot Racing

• Chariot racing was socially intense—fans formed factions so passionate that “charioteer hooligans” existed, and riots or even suicides followed their idol’s fate. (25:11–26:07)
• “In 69 AD, Emperor Vitellius had some commoners executed because they talked trash about the Blue faction.” (26:12)
• High risk for both participants and spectators: flying debris, risk of trampling, and crowd violence were common. (26:28–27:16)

Quote:

“Chariot races were also dangerous for the audience because the rivalry went beyond lighthearted competition. It became as high risk as the races themselves. … Charioteer hooligans.” — Ben Bolan (25:11)

8. Comparative Perspective: Who’s the Modern Diocles?

• The hosts contrast Diocles with modern athletes and identify Floyd Mayweather (boxing) as the current highest earner: $285 million in a single year (mainly from one fight). (36:46–38:35)
• Even with today’s astronomical salaries, “no one has beaten the record that Diocles the Charioteer established way back in ancient Rome.” (38:37)

Quote:

“All the money in the world still, with our current level of medical technology, will not help you fully recover from decades of brutal concussions.” — Ben Bolan (38:35)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the enduring risks of sport:
  “We are at our best, only human.” — Ben Bolan (09:50)

• On sports tribalism:
  “It hits all the same notes of tribalism, you know what I mean? And identifying with something larger than oneself.” — Ben Bolan (25:11)

• Spectator fanaticism:
  “One guy learned about the death 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.” — Ben Bolan (25:11)

• On playing the long game:
  “He was playing the long game… he certainly knew how to show off and have some flourishes. He had his own signature style… called the strong final dash.” — Noel Brown (35:21)

• Modern context:
  “Floyd Mayweather knocked all of that out of the water with something that happened very recently, right?” — Noel Brown (37:30)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 00:09–01:24: Opening banter, theme introduction, and why the episode topic matters.
• 06:48–08:41: The reveal of Diocles, via Dr. Peter Struck’s research.
• 09:18–12:36: The perilous and extravagant world of chariot racing.
• 17:57–19:28: Economic context—Diocles’ insane earnings and historical comparison.
• 20:50–21:50: Diocles' career stats, strategic career moves, and his “baseball card” legacy.
• 22:34–27:16: Chariot racing’s social impact, violence, and fanatical culture.
• 32:20–35:40: Diocles’ clever career decisions and the “strong final dash.”
• 36:46–38:35: Modern highest paid athletes—Mayweather’s earnings compared to Diocles.
• 38:57–40:36: Playful debate on whether the hosts would attempt a chariot race.
• 39:53: Comic recommendation: Britannia—an ancient Roman detective series.

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Tone & Style

The episode’s tone is witty, enthusiastic, and a touch irreverent, blending historical fact with pop culture references and personal anecdotes. Ben and Noel’s banter keeps the energy lively, punctuated by genuine awe at the absurdity of both ancient and modern sports economies.

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Final Takeaways

• The true “GOAT” of sports earnings isn’t Jordan, LeBron, or Mayweather—it’s Gaius Appuleius Diocles, who turned ancient chariot carnage into a $15 billion fortune (today’s value).
• While modern sports prize money is jaw-dropping, it’s a mere shadow of what was at stake in Rome—both in cash and in risk.
• The passions of sport—tribalism, spectacle, glory, and tragedy—are as old as civilization itself.
• One last memorable send-off:

  “Let us know if you’d do a chariot race. I think it would be a lot of fun.” — Ben Bolan (39:18)

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Recommended Media:

• Britannia comic series
• Further reading on chariot history: Dr. Peter Struck, Lapham’s Quarterly

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Transcript

[Ben Bolan]

And we are back with this week's classic episode. Guys, recently I went with our pal Ramsey Yunt from earlier to watch a Hawks game.

[Noel Brown]

Nice.

[Ben Bolan]

Here in Atlanta. Yeah, it's, we were at Phillips. It was just, it was a great time, you know what I mean?

[Noel Brown]

Oh, I, I, I, I love, I love calling it the old, the old name. I think it's so funny. I, I still think of it. I still, I, I, I still call it Phillips myself. I did this just the other day.

[Ben Bolan]

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, it's a good hang.

[Noel Brown]

It's, it's, it's good people watching. Even if you're not into, you know, the sports watching part of it.

[Ben Bolan]

You got snacks, you got all kinds of great acts in between the game as well.

[Noel Brown]

I love a parade, you know.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, yeah, yeah, Bread and circuses.

[Noel Brown]

It is fun to participate in that continuum of, of history. Oh, God, who could forget about Creed?

[Ben Bolan]

I keep trying. I keep trying.

[Noel Brown]

They won't let you keep bringing it up, Max.

[Ben Bolan]

We won't forget about Creed. 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 of athletes who are pros who don't make a ton of money. So let's remember them.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, well, that's true. And of course we are talking about a, at the time in ancient Rome, an absolute rock star of an athlete, a charioteer by the name of Gaius Apuleius Diocles who. This is like, this is the reason the inflation calculator exists. Made a heap of coin being quite the showboat halftime show charioteer.

[Ben Bolan]

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 more about sports than we ever will.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ben Bolan]

Guaranteed Human.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

[Ben Bolan]

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

[Evan Ratliff]

But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast Shell Game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

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[Ben Bolan]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Confession. 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.

[Noel Brown]

Ben. So they're like ninja socks?

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, that's a way to put it. Yeah, it's like the division for the sandals. Picture every western film you've seen in the 90s or something that featured ninjas, Right? Yeah. So I've got these. It's weird. I took my shoes off and showed you and our super producer, Casey Pegram these socks before we hit the air. I feel somewhat more athletic in these.

[Noel Brown]

Well, Ben, we are in a tiny shipping container type box. Did you put your shoes back on?

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah. Yeah. You can tell. Noel, you can tell that I put my shoes back on. I think being in a small area with your shoes off like that, in a work environment, it'd be kind of rude.

[Noel Brown]

No, it's poor podcast etiquette to be like.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, like loudly eating or something.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, my gosh, Ben, are you being passive aggressive to me about my loud on mic eating?

[Dani Shapiro]

No.

[Ben Bolan]

You're not eating something?

[Noel Brown]

I'm not right now. But, you know, I've been known to have a snack occasionally, but I try to do it off mic.

[Ben Bolan]

Actually do it when we're not on air.

[Noel Brown]

That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. Although I gotta say, sometimes I find it charming when I. When a podcaster has a little snack on there. I think it's a. About personal choice, personal preference.

[Ben Bolan]

So back to this. This idea. I am not a professional athlete, and you and I know each other pretty well. You are currently not a professional athlete.

[Noel Brown]

No, I'm barely a professional anything.

[Ben Bolan]

We're barely professional podcasters. Right.

[Noel Brown]

I actually updated my. My Instagram bio to be a semi pro podcast geek. So that's. That's what I consider semi pro.

[Ben Bolan]

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 athletic endeavors around the world. And for a peek behind the curtain, as the three of us record today's episode of ridiculous history, we are on the ve of two very big and unusual things for our fair metropolis of Atlanta. The first is a definite. That's the Super Bowl. And the second is a possible storm, a snowstorm.

[Noel Brown]

So we're looking for the snowpocalypse super bowl traffic jam coming our way pretty soon.

[Ben Bolan]

Right. Which became a Facebook event that a lot of people in town checked in on. Right. Did you do that?

[Noel Brown]

Not yet.

[Ben Bolan]

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 ourselves a surprisingly fascinating question. Who was the highest paid athlete not just this year, but in history?

[Noel Brown]

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 Dr. 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 footballer or a basketballer.

[Ben Bolan]

Was it LeBron?

[Noel Brown]

Tiger wasn't, you know, some, some football player.

[Ben Bolan]

Wasn't Michael Jordan. Wasn't Joe Montana.

[Noel Brown]

Don't want Joe Montana.

[Ben Bolan]

That's a football player.

[Noel Brown]

That's true. I remember him from. From video games, mainly.

[Ben Bolan]

I like. He, he had. He was known for his effect, ugly throws.

[Noel Brown]

But he had a big old arm, right. He was like an arm guy.

[Ben Bolan]

Most of them do. They're very few.

[Noel Brown]

That's true. What's that? Peyton Manning. He's.

[Ben Bolan]

He's a good.

[Dani Shapiro]

There we go.

[Noel Brown]

He's worth a lot of money.

[Ben Bolan]

Tiny arm. Jenkins.

[Noel Brown]

Jenkins. And then the refrigerator. But no, none of those guys. Turns out it was a. I'm going to say charioteer.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, a charioteer named Gaius Appalius Diocles.

[Noel Brown]

Well done. We'll.

[Ben Bolan]

We'll probably shift around in that. In that pronunciation times. This is a very, very, very interesting guy. He was from an area of what is now modern day Spain and Portugal. 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 146 CE or AD however you prefer. And it tells us exactly how much this charioteer from the province of Lusitania earned during his. Oh, what Was it, Noel? 24 years as an athlete, As a charioteer.

[Noel Brown]

Yes. And let's not sweep under the rug the fact that that is an awful long time to survive in such a 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 10 horsemen, horses. He had like the reins tied around his waist, you know, and I can imagine a mishap, you know, tearing him limb from limb. But no, he was able to maintain this career 24 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.

[Ben Bolan]

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 and US football, which, you know, leave the door wide open to concussions.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, you know, 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 4.8 years.

[Ben Bolan]

Right, right. It's true. Now this can be longer for some, 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 human. So this guy is doing a tremendous job back in his time as a charioteer. Noel, what exactly would his sport have been comprised of?

[Noel Brown]

Well, like I said, he would have been piloting a. I guess a two wheeled chariot. Right. How many wheels are on a chariot? Is it four? I think I picture it as being reared back on two wheels. Two wheels with a team of horses, like I said, up to 10 reins used to kind of encourage them to go faster or slow up. And like I said, he actually had them tied around his body so he could use his whole body to kind of control the horses.

[Ben Bolan]

And he was racing. This is racing?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, specifically. And dirty tricks and chariot racing. I guess I think of maybe cartoon examples of chariot racing where all of a sudden one of the wheels would have 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. And I think people would stop at nothing to defeat the competition, no matter what it took. Right?

[Ben Bolan]

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 Chario two horse team, a four horse team, a six horse team. The earliest account of a chariot race occurs in Homer's description of the funeral of Patroclus. 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 event. You know what I mean? It's like a citywide festival or contest. And 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 Circus Maximus. These chariots, we should emphasize, were very light affairs because 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.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And to that end, most of the folks that piloted these chariots only lived till about 24 years old, whereas Diocles retired, which is very unusual at the ripe old age of 42, at which point he was worth a whole lot of money.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

[Ben Bolan]

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

[Evan Ratliff]

But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

[Ben Bolan]

There's this betting pool for the first.

[Noel Brown]

Year that there's a one person billion.

[Evan Ratliff]

Dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.

[Noel Brown]

And now will happen.

[Evan Ratliff]

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

Oh, hey Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rate for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

[Evan Ratliff]

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going Back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[Ben Bolan]

That's how long Elizabeth and its family waited for justice to occur.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love. So he would have this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Radhi Devlukia]

Hi, I'm Radhi Devlukia, and I am the host of a really good Cry podcast. This week I am joined by Anna Runkle, also known as the Crappy Childhood Fairy, a creator, teacher, and guide, helping people heal from the lasting emotional wounds of unreal, unsafe, or chaotic childhoods. We talk about how the things we went through when we were younger can still show up in our adult lives, in our relationships, our reactions, even in the way we feel in our own bodies. And Anna opens up about her own story. What helped her notice the patterns she was stuck in and how she slowly started teaching her body that it is safe now.

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

So when I got attacked, it was very random. Four guys jumped out of a car and just started beating me and my friend, and they broke my jaw and my teeth. I was unconscious. Then I woke up and I screamed. And I screamed because even though I didn't know who I was or where I was, something in me was just like, hold on, wait. They could kill me. And I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to get through this.

[Radhi Devlukia]

And I did listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dani Shapiro]

Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast Family Secrets.

[Ben Bolan]

We were in the car like a Rolling Stone came on, and he said, there's a line in there about your mother.

[Noel Brown]

And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have. I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but.

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

I couldn't hold on to what had happened.

[Dani Shapiro]

These are just a few of the moving and important stories I'll be holding space for on my upcoming 13th season of Family Secrets. Whether you've been on this journey with me from season one or just joining the Family Secrets family, we're so happy to have you with us. I'll dive deep into the incredible power of secrets, the ones that shape our identities, test our relationships, and ultimately reveal who we truly are. Listen to Family secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Poynter, Chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Adria Health Institute in New York. On this show, I'll be talking to top researchers and top clinicians, asking them your burning questions and bringing that information about women's health and midlife directly to you.

[Ben Bolan]

100% of women go through menopause. It can be such a struggle for our quality of life. But even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it?

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

The types of symptoms that people talk about is forgetting everything. I never used to forget things. They're concerned that one, they have dementia and the other one is do I have adhd?

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

There is unprecedented promise with regard to cannabis and cannabinoids to sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood and also to have better day to day life.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Poynter on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.

[Ben Bolan]

Doctor Strzok found that Diocles total earnings would have equated to roughly $15 billion in modern terms. 15 billion with a B. You can also see another great write up of this in History Collection. There's an article by Alexander Meddings that we would recommend. This is strange because these were all net earnings too. The charioteer didn't have to pay promoters, didn't have to pay a marketing team or support his, I don't know, Entourage or shell out cash for sponsorship. He probably had it pretty good. What would he have done personally with that? And how did Professor Strzok figure out.

[Noel Brown]

This number on that inscription Ben, that you mentioned? It has his earnings in the currency of the time, which is Sesterche. And that would have been 35,863,120 and Strzok figured out that for the time that would have been enough to buy grain to feed the entirety of Rome 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.

[Ben Bolan]

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 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 a charioteer. Because the horses kept going.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. There'd be a lot of trampling. And Ben, we were trying to get to the conversion method. We always plug numbers into it. Our handy dandy inflation calculator here on ridiculous history. But those figures that I mentioned earlier were on are on the stone inscription. This the idea of being able to bankroll the Roman army for a fifth of a year. So Strzok was able to extrapolate 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 would have been a pretty good educated guess.

[Ben Bolan]

Absolutely. And, oh, you know what we should do? We should read the actual inscription. So here it goes. In the English translation, it begins with Gaius Apuleius Diocles, charioteer of the red stable. A Lusitanian Spaniard by birth, age 42 years, 7 months, 23 days. And the monument says he raced four horse chariots for 24 years. So we get some valuable numbers there. We also know 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 is, according to the inscription, In 4,257 races. He won 1463 times. And the inscription says that translates to him winning 92 major prizes. Of these, 32 were of 30,000 sesterche, three of them with six horse teams, two in races with six horse chariots, one with a seven horse chariot he tied with. Because they had these different factions, right? He was a red stable and he tied a blue stable 10 times, a green stable 91. 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 a big deal, a baseball card would map out the stats of your favorite baseball player.

[Noel Brown]

Ben, would these have been alongside gladiator events, or would those have been two different things? Cause it feels like this would have almost been 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, there's.

[Ben Bolan]

That's a good question, Noel. There's probably a situation, again, wherein there were large public events that involved this stuff. And there were definitely chariots in gladiatorial combat attacks.

[Noel Brown]

That's right.

[Dani Shapiro]

Right.

[Noel Brown]

Sometimes there could have been probably gladiator matches on chariot where they're, like, coming at each other, swinging weapons as they pass. Right.

[Ben Bolan]

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 the wheels were a real thing. And the charioteers would attempt to ram their rival into the median at the center of the track, called the spinae. And then they would come crashing into these hairpin turns. They also. I thought you would find just the pure spectacle of this fascinating. 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. And bring down, in this sense means literally grind them into the dust. This violence is part 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 their individual demographic. Chariot races were the same way, but before television.

[Noel Brown]

That's true. And you could also probably expect to see someone get really horribly injured. And ideally that's less the case with modern American football, or they're trying to phase that out and make it less of an attraction. But I still think that's largely what people. Not to taste blood, but it's all about the stakes, right? What's the point of 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.

[Ben Bolan]

That's a great. That's a great question. I wrote a thing a long time ago that 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 oneself. This is making me miss car stuff, Noel. 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 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.

[Dani Shapiro]

Dude, that's a.

[Noel Brown]

That's like sports as a stand in for not only warfare, but like religion.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah, good call. In 69 AD or CE, the Emperor Vitellius 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.

[Noel Brown]

And it also reminds me of sort of the early days of auto racing, like the Le Mans. Remember we did an episode on that where it was absolutely very dangerous just physically to be a spectator. Because if there was 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. And such is the case for these chariot races. You'd have the potential for people in the stands getting hit by pieces flying off of the chariots and stuff.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh yeah, the 24 hour Le Mans. Yeah, we have a ridiculous history on that. We have something about the history of the race in a series on car stuff too. If you'd like to learn more about the. Oh my gosh. The utter, utterly horrific accidents that happened in those races.

[Evan Ratliff]

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

[Ben Bolan]

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

[Evan Ratliff]

But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

[Ben Bolan]

There's this betting pool for the first.

[Noel Brown]

Year that there's a one person, billion.

[Evan Ratliff]

Dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.

[Noel Brown]

And now will happen.

[Evan Ratliff]

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

Oh, hey Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses.

[Evan Ratliff]

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where Amanda committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[Ben Bolan]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve some, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Radhi Devlukia]

Hi, I'm Radhi Devlukia and I am the host of a really good Cry podcast. This week I am joined by Anna Runkle, also known as the Crappy Childhood Fairy, a creator, teacher, and guide helping people heal from the lasting emotional wounds of unsafe or chaotic childhoods. We talk about how the things we went through when we were younger can still show up in our adult lives, in our relationships, our reactions, even in the way we feel in our own bodies. And Anna opens up about her own story. What helped her notice the patterns she was stuck in and how she slowly started teaching her body that it is safe now.

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

So when I got attacked, it was very random. Four guys jumped out of a car and just started beating me and my friend. And they broke my jaw, my teeth. I was unconscious. Then I woke up and I screamed. And I screamed because even though I didn't know who I was or where I was, something in me was just like, hold on, wait, they could kill me. And I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I'M going to get through this, this.

[Radhi Devlukia]

And I did listen to a really good cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Dani Shapiro]

Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast Family Secrets.

[Ben Bolan]

We were in the car like a Rolling Stone came on and he said, there's a line in there about your mother.

[Noel Brown]

And I said, what? What I would do if I didn't feel like I was being accepted is choose an identity that other people can't have. I knew something had happened to me in the middle of the night, but.

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

I couldn't hold on to what had happened.

[Dani Shapiro]

These are just a few of the moving and important stories I'll be holding space for on my upcoming 13th season of Family Secrets. Whether you've been on this journey with me from season one or just joining the Family Secrets family, we're so happy to have you with us. I'll dive deep into the incredible power of secrets, the ones that shape our identities, test our relationships, and ultimately reveal who we truly are. Listen to Family secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Poynter, Chair of Women's health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. On this show I'll be talking to top researchers and top clinicians, asking them your burning questions and bringing that information about women's health and midlife directly to you.

[Ben Bolan]

100% of women go through menopause. It can be such a struggle for our quality of life. But even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it?

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

The types of symptoms that people talk about is forgetting everything. I never used to forget things. They're concerned that one, they have dementia and the other one is do I have adhd?

[Guest from 'A Really Good Cry' podcast]

There is unprecedented promise with regard to cannabis and cannabinoids. To sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood and also to have better day to day life.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Poynter on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Now.

[Ben Bolan]

We have to say, you know, we have to speculate a bit on the psychology of the audience was 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 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 and the Blues were the most successful and the most popular. Right. Think of them like the New England Patriots, if you're a football fan. But then he made a switch. He made a switch, Roo. 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 have given him some more time to shine. He would have been a bigger fish in 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 the Reds. And that's what he did, did. And despite what you might assume.

[Noel Brown]

He.

[Ben Bolan]

Was not the charioteer who won the most races. He just got the most money. As Professor Robert B. Kiebreich points out, in the career of Diocles, Roman charioteer, his victories paled in comparison to those of other charioteers, such as Scorpus, who had 2048 victories, or Pompeius Musclosus, who had 3559 victories. But he made it. He won the game. Right. He retired. As we said, he lived a pretty sedate, fun life after that from. Let's see, he was born approximately 104 CE, and he passed away sometime after 146 CE. But I believe his death was relatively peaceful or unremarked upon.

[Noel Brown]

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 was looking. He was playing the long game. Right, Ben? I mean, he was, like, protecting himself and maybe not being quite 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. And it was called the strong final dash.

[Ben Bolan]

Oh, nice.

[Noel Brown]

Because he. He could just pull out all the stops in the end. That maybe means he would bide his time a little bit and 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, 50 years old?

[Ben Bolan]

He passed away on his estate in the Italian countryside near modern day Palestrina. And he lived out the remainder of his days living the quiet life. You know, he had a son and a daughter who later erected a memorial to him at the site. And there he remains in history as the 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 ballin' back 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. Cause some of this depends on how you calculate it. Casey, help us out with a drumroll here, if you would be so kind. The highest paid athlete in the modern world is.

[Noel Brown]

It's Floyd Mayweather, who's an American boxer, problematic figure. He's gotten 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 those three had a combined earning total of $259 million for a season's win worth of work.

[Ben Bolan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noel Brown]

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, right?

[Ben Bolan]

That's correct. That's correct. He earned the top spot, you said, a little north of 250mil total. For those other three. Between June 1, 2017 and June 1, 2018, Floyd Mayweather earned $275 million. This comes to from a greatmoney.com article by Mike Ayers. Here's the kicker. He earned that. Not across the year. He earned that for one night of work when he fought Conor McGregor on August 27, 2018. Add in his total $10 million worth of additional endorsements and we get up to 285 million. This is not his first time topping the list. He has topped it four times in the last 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 of brutal concussions.

[Noel Brown]

It's true.

[Ben Bolan]

So you win some, you lose some. And at this point still, according to Dr. Strzok, no one has beaten the record that Diocles the Charioteer established way back in ancient Rome. Makes you think. Would you do a chariot race?

[Noel Brown]

No, man, the two wheel thing freaks me out.

[Ben Bolan]

I would totally do.

[Noel Brown]

Seems like it'd be so easy to flip over. Those horses have to counterbalance you the whole time and if you lose the slack on the race, 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.

[Ben Bolan]

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 just ride some chariots around, please let me know. You can hit us on our Facebook group Ridiculous Stories. You can hit me up on Instagram directly. Benbolan.

[Noel Brown]

Surely there's some kind of chariot simulator you could try before jumping full bore into the circus maximus.

[Ben Bolan]

I want to go for the gusto, man.

[Noel Brown]

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.

[Ben Bolan]

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 Axiom, 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 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.

[Noel Brown]

As always, thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Thanks to our amazing research associate, Gabe, and thanks to you, Ben Bolan, my friend.

[Ben Bolan]

Hey, thanks to you, Noel Brown.

[Noel Brown]

Got a question for you. Is this comic recommendation is sort of an alternate historical account, kind of like Manifest destiny or one of those kind of things?

[Ben Bolan]

Deals without all of the tinges of supernatural stuff. It's a mystery comic and I think.

[Noel Brown]

Sounds like a winner.

[Ben Bolan]

It's well done. Let us know what you think and.

[Noel Brown]

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.

[Dr. Elizabeth Poynter]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ben Bolan]

Guaranteed Human.