Current sport figures such as Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafa Nadal or Fernando Alonso themselves are respected for their abilities in their respective sports disciplines, and sponsors and clubs are responsible for reward them economically In line.
However, none of them, not even gathering their fortunes, would never manage to match the richness that the most popular athlete in ancient Rome amassed: Cayo Apuleyo Diocles.
In case you ask you in your Daily thought about the Roman Empirequadrigas races were the star event of any great celebration. The equivalent of a Formula 1 Grand Prize, but instead of cars with more than 1,000 hp of power, quadrigas pulled by four horses, trigas (by three horses) or bigos (by two horses) and grouped into four equipment or four FACTIONE: White, red, blue and green.
These features came to be the current F1 shudges and the atcraigas were The pilots of those carsthey were revered as authentic superstars. However, although those athletes did not sign exclusive contracts with sponsors, They received authentic fortunes For winning each race.
Cayo Apuleyo Diocles was one of the most successful aurigas in the empire, and managed to lift the laurel crown in 1,462 races. Each of those victories, in addition to its corresponding laurel crown of the champions, was accompanied by a substantial sum in metallic. His long career made him one of the best paid athletes of all time and came to treasure a fortune greater than that of the great athletes of our era (adjusting for inflation, of course).
The Lusitano champion
Despite having been one of the most recognized athletes in the ancient world, the story of Cayo Apuleyo Diocles has reached our days only for two sizes in which its history is told. The first and most important is a tombstone that experts suspect that it was placed in homage to their achievements on the walls of the Nero Circus, in the current city of the Vatican.
In that slab they describe in detail the entire champion of the champion, as well as the economic amount that added all the races in which he was victorious. Cayo Apuleyo Diocles He was born in the Roman province of Lusitaniawhat today is Portugal, Extremadura and the south of Castilla y León. It could be born in the capital of that province, Augusta Emerita, which Today we know as Mérida.
However, there is no written record of it.
Roman Auriga
What is known is that he was born in 104 and with only 18 years debuted in the sand. Only two years later he began to savor the honey of success by raising the champion laurels.
The Lusitanian Auriga continued to feed the fervor of the fans for the next 24 years running in the most prestigious sands as the maximum circus of Rome, with capacity for 150,000 spectators. Sometimes, and for the sake of the show, the Auriga asked to leave from the last position to end up rising with the victory.
As recorded in the wake found in the Nero Circus, Diocles retired with 42 years, 7 months and 23 daysconsolidating itself as one of the aurigas with the longest race of ancient Rome in a sport that stood out for its danger.
Transcription of the wake of Cayo Apuleyo Diocles found in the Nero Circus
Often, the cars collided during the race and the aurigas were dragged by their own horses, trampled by the horses of their rivals or hit by their cars. A risk that returns us to the formula 1 or motorcycle circuits today.
Registrations leave testimony of An impressive palmraés Formed by 4,257 races in which he won 1,462 victories and was second in 1,438 competitions. Most of them got them by driving squares, but also won the victory in other disciplines in which cars thrown by up to seven horses participated.
The registration that the tribute leaves testimony of the audacity of the Lusitanian Auriga specifying that in one of the events he participated in two races with cars thrown by three and six horses, ending victorious in both the same day.
Adding the amount of all the awards achieved, Cayo Apuleyo Diocles gathered about 36 million seastercios. He Professor Peter Structfrom the University of Pennsylvania, has tried to adjust that fortune to inflation, and has determined that they would currently be the equivalent to 15,000 million dollarsso it would be among the 100 richest people in the world According to the Forbes list.
The champion could enjoy his fortune in a golden retirement in Praeneste, which corresponds to the current Palestrina, a population near Rome. In the temple of the original fortune of that population, the basis of a sculpture was found in which mention is made, as a epitaphto the Lusitano champion who at his death left a son and a daughter: Cayo Apuleyo Nimfidiano and Nimfidia.
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Image | Flickr (Luis Antonio Fernández Corral)
*An earlier version of this article was published in September 2023
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