Darius was born to a noble family of Satraps serving King Cyrus the Great. King Cyrus greatly expanded the Persian empire. But after King Cyrus's death, the royal family was in turmoil over succession to the throne, where his sons Cambysses and Bardiya plotted to kill each other.
At that time, Darius was serving as King Cyrus's bodyguard and personal war strategist. On Cyrus's death, Darius watch the warring princes with disgust. Although he planned on supporting one of the princes, subconsciously he wanted to seize the throne, as he felt that he was the closest to King Cyrus and can continue Cyrus's ambitions. Artoxares caught wind of his desires and approached him to encourage him. As Darius spends more time with Artoxares, he was tempted even more and finally made up his mind to carry out his rebellion. With the help of Artoxares's Ahura Mazda forces, Darius killed both princes and usurped the throne.
King Darius then installed Artoxares as the Grand vizier, and put his trust on almost everything includes running of the government. Due to Artoxares previous brainwashing, King Darius began to think that he is the chosen one by Ahura Mazda, and that Ahura Mazda has made him King through divine intervention. He began to dwell deep into religion and ignore all other affairs. The Ahura Mazda clan became a very important part of the government, and now the Persian government is ruled though the clan's doctrines. Citizens are now mandated to adopt Ahura Mazda as their religion.
King Darius became even more arrogant and mad with the spiritual world. Everyday he revels in religious service and rituals and celebrations while ignoring worldly affairs. The ministers and people around him began to distrust him, and even his Queen, a political marriage from the Babylon empire, eloped with one of his ministers. He was enraged and vowed vengeance against the Babylon empire.
Artoxares puts a suggestion that the Babylon empire is actually being controlled behind the shadows by the Angra Mainyu clan, which is a heretic cult that opposes Ahura Mazda. King Darius, with cognitive bias, is now convinced that it is the evil Ahriman which causes all the problems in his empire. Slowly with each day, Artoxares briefed him with all the bad news in his empire and put the blame on Babylon and Ahriman. King Darius was enraged and wanted to declare a holy war against the evil Babylon empire and the Angra Mainyu clan. Alot of his ministers did not agree with the plan and tried to dissuade him, but all were put to death by Artoxares's men.
Soon enough, King Darius declared war. Due to both his fame and the late King Cyrus, he managed to gather alot of vassal kingdoms and smaller clans to his side. Artoxares became the chieft strategist while King Darius now only functions as the puppet King to rally the forces.
The great battle broke and as expected, the Persian forces overpowers the Babylon and Angra Mainyu clan. However, during the heated battle between King Darius and Anna, Artoxares managed to slip in and kill King Darius. As Anna also fell in battle. Artoxares returned to announce that King Darius had been killed by the enemy and proclaimed himself as interim commander of the battlefield. By the time the war is over, Artoxares officially became the next king and changed his name to Artaxerxes.
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