 No longer content to help others to the throne, Nymphidius declared that he himself was a legitimate successor to Nero — a claim which he supported with the dubious assertion that he was the illegitimate son of the former emperor Caligula.He also took Nero's "wife", Sporus, as his own wife.Sporus, who was a young freedman, had been married to Nero (after he had had him castrated) because he resembled emperor's second wife