Entering on a political career, he became a successful candidate for the quaestorship, which was an important step towards the highest offices of the state.

During this period of his life he married a lady whose name has not been preserved to us, and to whom we have only one allusion, which is a curious one.

As in our own history it has been sometimes the fashion for ladies of rank to have dwarves and negroes among their attendants, so it seems to have been the senseless and revolting custom of the Roman ladies of this time to keep idiots among the number of their servants.
The first wife of Seneca had followed this fashion, and Seneca in his fiftieth letter to his friend Lucilius[21] makes the following interesting allusion to the fact.

"You know," he says, "that my wife's idiot girl Harpaste has remained in my house as a burdensome legacy.

For personally I feel the profoundest dislike to monstrosities of that kind.
If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for one.