What makes a tyrant scary? His guards, you say. Their swords. His servants. The men who keep people out. But why doesn't a child fear the tyrant when he's surrounded by all these guards? Because the child doesn't understand what they're for. Now imagine a man who does understand. He knows the guards have swords. But he comes to the tyrant anyway — because he wants to die. Some terrible situation has driven him to seek an easy death by another's hand. Is this man afraid of the guards? No. He wants exactly what makes the guards frightening.
What makes the tyrant formidable? The guards, you say, and their swords, and the men of the bedchamber, and those who exclude them who would enter. Why then if you bring a boy (child) to the tyrant when he is with his guards, is he not afraid; or is it because the child does not understand these things? If then any man does understand what guards are and that they have swords, and comes to the tyrant for this very purpose because he wishes to die on account of some circumstance and seeks to die easily by the hand of another, is he afraid of the guards? No, for he wishes for the thing which makes the guards formidable.