Ultra millionaire sponsorship deals such as those signed by sprinter Usain Bolt and tennis player Maria Sharapova are just peanuts compared to the personal fortune amassed by a second century A.D. Roman racer.
An illiterate charioteer named Gaius Appuleius Diocles earned the staggering sum of 35,863,120 sesterces in prize money. By today's standards that would be about $15 billion. Diocles was born in Lusitania, in what is now Portugal and south-west Spain, and started his spectacular career in 122 A.D., when he was 18. Records show that he won 1,462 out of the 4,257 four-horse races he competed in.