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How did palace intrigue bring Darius III to the Achaemenid throne?

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Relief of three Achaemenid warriors, known as the Ten Thousand Immortals, depicted in profile on glazed bricks with patterned robes and bows, from the Palace of Artaxerxes at Susa.
Achaemenid Empire Frieze of Archers from the palace of Darius I at Susa, c. 510 bce; some believe the warriors are among the Ten Thousand Immortals.

Darius III ascended to the Achaemenid throne in 336 BCE as a direct result of intense court intrigue and the machinations of the powerful eunuch Bagoas.12

The path to his accession was paved by a series of political murders. Bagoas had previously orchestrated the poisoning of Artaxerxes III and subsequently installed Artaxerxes’ youngest son, Arses, as king. When Arses attempted to resist Bagoas’s influence and retaliate against the "kingmaker," he was killed.132

Following the death of Arses, Bagoas engineered the rise of Darius III, who was then a 45-year-old former satrap of Armenia. Because so many members of the royal house had been eliminated through these court plots, Darius likely held the closest blood claim to the throne as a grandnephew of Artaxerxes II. Once in power, Darius eventually asserted his independence from Bagoas, forcing the eunuch to consume the same poison he had used to manipulate the succession.123