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[3]

Charondas also wrote a unique law on evil association, which had been overlooked by all other lawgivers. He took it for granted that the characters of good men are in some cases perverted to evil by reason of their friendship and intimacy with bad persons,1 and that badness, like a pestilent disease, sweeps over the life of mankind and infects the souls of the most upright; for the road to the worse slopes downward and so provides an easier way to take; and this is the reason why many men of fairly good character, ensnared by deceptive pleasures, get stranded upon very bad habits. Wishing, therefore, to remove this source of corruption, the lawgiver forbade the indulgence in friendship and intimacy with unprincipled persons, provided actions at law against evil association, and by means of severe penalties diverted from their course those who were about to err in this manner.

1 Cp. Aesch. Seven 599-600:“ ἐν παντὶ πράγει δ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁμιλίας κακῆς
κακίον οὐδέν, καρπὸς οὐ κομιστέος.
”("In every issue naught is more evil than evil partnership—the fruit thereof must have no garnering." Tr. by Smyth in L.C.L.).

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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