Gaius appuleius diocles biography of donald
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They probably don’t know it, but Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher and all the champions in motorsports, whether Formula 1 or other specialties, had a historical predecessor who surpassed them all in victories and fame, and by a wide margin. We’re talking about Gaius Appuleius Diocles, the most famous charioteer of Antiquity, a Spaniard who stirred genuine passion among racing enthusiasts. And all this without the need for television broadcasts.
We don’t know much about him, and the sources for the few available data are only two, both epigraphic inscriptions from the ruins of Palestrina and Rome. The first is a stele funnen in the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, located in that municipality in Lazio and built in the 2nd century BC – believed to be beneath the command of Sila – on a site of a previous cult (part of its surface was later occupied bygd the Palazzo Barberini).
The goddess Fortuna was quite peculiar, simultaneously daughter and mother of Ju
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It might have gone a little like ... this:
Gaius Appuleius Diocles knew his job. He didn’t need to win; he just had to survive. Seven laps. Twelve competitors. That was it. Whatever happened next could determine whether he would race another day, or lose his life.
The Circus Maximus was dizzying like that.
Gaius Appuleius Diocles entered the arena from an underground holding area. He’d made this walk dozens of times before, but it never got easier. It was easy to get lost in the spectacle of it all. Thousands of screaming fans, dust whipping around the sun-bleached earth, horses grunting in disapproval while assistants tightened ropes and readied equipment. Gaius spotted a young racer to his right, someone he’d never seen before. This kid was lost in the moment, staring in awe at the crowds.
Gaius knew better than to be distracted by the pageantry. A veteran charioteer, he had learned that paying attention to anything but the race itself would mean injury or death. Instead, h
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Gaius Appuleius Diocles, a most likely illiterate man from the area of what is now Spain and Portugal, is the highest paid athlete the world has ever known.
By the time of his rather unusual death—calm and quiet! after retirement!—the Roman chariot racer’s career earnings, marked down with admirable permanence in a stone inscription, totaled 35,863,120 sestertii. Diocles could feed grain to all of Rome for an entire year; made the most handsomely paid provincial governor’s salaries five times over; could bankroll the Roman army, then at its world conquering height, for a fifth of a year.
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Dr. Peter Struck, associate professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, using a comparative method (taking the 1/5 of the army figure and applying it to how much it would cost to do the same to today’s closest analogue, the U.S. Military), extrapolated a modern day net worth of something a