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So remember Ben Hur, the charioteer? Well, it turns out that he probably was an extremely well paid athlete.

According to Penn professor, Peter Struck, whose findings are reported on the website of Lapham's Quarterly, a history magazine, the leading charioteer of his day, one Gaius Appuleius, earned the modern day equivalent of about $15 billion. To put that into perspective, consider that Tiger Woods' earnings (in a good year) just top $1 billion.

Pretty good chunk of change for riding behind horses, don't you think. Romans, of course, were the ultimate fans of chariot racing and the concept of trotters probably dates back to those chariots.

You can read more about how Professor Struck computed these earnings, here. "I don't propose that I've come to some hard and fast solution," he says. "What I do think that I've done is make accessible a sense of the utter magnitude of this guy's worth. It's extraordinary."

Especially for a jockey!