Averting eyes

In a treatment of envy and gratitude, Visser ( The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , p. 362-3) notes that the Latin invidia comes from videre and means “‘seeing with intensity,’ paying meticulous and malevolent attention, eyeing in order to measure and compare one’s own lot with that of another, while feeling, if the other is deemed to be better off, the injustice of teh difference.”

She connects this to belief in the evil eye, according to which “a person has the power to cause harm to another merely by looking at or praising that person or his property.” To avert the evil eye, people go to “wearing amulets, reciting counter-charms, making specific apotropaic gestures, or spitting.” For Romans, “an erect phallus had the power to avert the evil eye; they carried in the celebratory processions calls the ‘triumphs’ a fascinus (the word mean both the evil eye and a charm against it) in the form of a giant phallus, to protect from the forces of Invidia the victorious chariot-born general who was the focus of all the glory.” By this means, they would avert the envious scrutiny “likely to be inherent in or aroused by staring.”