Highest-paid Athlete Of All Time: Ancient Roman

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous Sports' started by brakos82, Sep 2, 2010.

  1. brakos82

    brakos82 30% more cats than last year!

    Highest-Paid Athlete Hailed From Ancient Rome : Discovery News

    Ultra millionaire sponsorship deals such as those signed by sprinter Usain Bolt, motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi and tennis player Maria Sharapova, are just peanuts compared to the personal fortune amassed by a second century A.D. Roman racer, according to an estimate published in the historical magazine Lapham's Quarterly.

    Recorded in a monumental inscription erected in 146 A.D., the figure eclipses the fortunes of all modern sport stars, including golfer Tiger Woods, hailed by Forbes magazine last fall “sports' first billion-dollar man.â€￾

    Struck calculated that Diocles’ s total earnings of 35,863,120 sesterces were enough to provide grain for the entire population of Rome for one year, or to fund the Roman Army at its height for more than two months.

    “By today’s standards that last figure, assuming the apt comparison is what it takes to pay the wages of the American armed forces for the same period, would cash out to about $15 billion,â€￾ wrote Struck.
     
  2. phiglesphan

    phiglesphan BANNED

    That's alot of IFs and some screwy math
     
  3. Crowned

    Crowned Doesn't give a shit.

    Screw.. Don't show this to Revis.
     
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