During the second century BC, the conquests of the Roman Empire took off, and a stream of money flowed into Rome. Each time the Romans entered a new province, the field lords came home with large swathes of war, and to pay tribute to themselves, they signed contracts with the stable to organize races in their name. The prize sums were huge and eventually, the stable developed into professional factions or teams as it is called in modern sports.
The teams took their names based on the colours they wore during the competitions. The oldest law was the white and red, and at the time of the birth of Christ came the Blue and the green. All the teams were on the Martian field a few kilometres from Circus Maximus, and the rivalry was intense. Sabotage and threats against coaches and coaches were not uncommon before the big race days.
And even worse, when the thousands of supporters sat side by side on the stands: “They were constantly rushing up from their seats, shouting and screaming and fighting with each other. Out of the mouth came the widest curse. They threw each other’s clothes against the cows and were forced to leave the Circus completely naked, ”wrote Greek speaker Dion Chrysostomos in the first century after visiting the city of Alexandria’s response to Circus Maximus.
The green and the Blue eventually became the largest team with private training courses, a dozen carts and hundreds of horses. Only the strongest and fastest horses competed in Circus Maximus, and they were brought home to Rome from all over the Mediterranean region.
Although the race was hugely popular, the competition runners had low status. Most of the cows were slaves who started working as stable boys and learned to deal with horse racing. The slaves’ dream was to run a four-team at Circus Maximus and earn enough money to buy themselves free and form a family.
Most of the caskets aimed to make as much money as possible. The risk of serious accidents was great, and many cousin careers came to a close with a broken carriage and broken bones. Therefore, the cows were not very loyal to their teams; as soon as a rival team offered better pay, they moved there, just like footballers can do today.
Diocles became a multimillionaire
It was also the case with Gaius Appuleius Dioc¬les’s most successful son of the Roman Empire. Diocles was born in Lusitania in present-day Portugal, which was then a Roman province. According to the tablet, Diocles began his career in 122 when he was 18 years old to run for the Whites. Two years later, he won the first of his total of 81 wins for the team, before he switched to the Greens six years later.
For them, he took home 216 victories. Then he ran for the Blue and won his last 960 victories there. Diocles ran a total of 4257 races and won 1462 of them. He was not, however, the most profitable cousin of Roman Empire history: it was Pompeius Musclosus with 3599 victories. But when it came to prize money, Diocles definitely played in his own league.
Unlike many of the other cousins, he had specialized in big races where there was big prize money, and a full 29 times he won the first prize of 50,000 sester tier – about 50 times more than one Roman soldier earned per year. In addition, during his 24-year career, Diocles achieved a star status reminiscent of the greatest footballers of our day.
With the unbelievably high winnings, Circus Maximus’ most successful cousins could live a luxury life that even the upper class in Rome could have envied. They bought large estates, surrounded themselves with hordes of slaves and were praised by supporters – and beautiful women.
Win And Play 