science

Invidia

Invidia is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Invidia rather than just read about it. In short: In Latin, invidia is the sense of envy, a "looking upon" associated with the evil eye, from invidere, "to look against, to look in a hostile manner." Invidia ("Envy") is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian belief. Invidia and magic The material culture and literature of ancient Rome offer numerous examples of rituals and magic spells intended to avert invidia and the evil eye.

Key takeaways

Invidia belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Invidia to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Invidia from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In Latin, invidia is the sense of envy, a "looking upon" associated with the evil eye, from invidere, "to look against, to look in a hostile manner." Invidia ("Envy") is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian belief.

Invidia and magic

The material culture and literature of ancient Rome offer numerous examples of rituals and magic spells intended to avert invidia and the evil eye. When a Roman general celebrated a triumph, the Vestal Virgins suspended a fascinus, or phallic effigy, under the chariot to ward off invidia. Envy is the vice most associated with witches and magic. The witch's protruding tongue alludes to Ovid's Invidia who has a poisoned tongue. The witch and Invidia share a significant feature – the Evil eye. The term invidia stems from the Latin invidere, "to look too closely". One type of the aggressive gaze is the "biting eye", often associated with envy, and reflects the ancient belief that envy originates from the eyes. Ovid feared that a witch who possessed eyes with double pupils would cast a burning fascination over his love affair. Fascinare means to bewitch. Catullus in one of his love poems jokes nervously about ill wishers who might count the kisses he gives to his beloved and thus be able to "fascinate" the lovers with an evil, envious spell. A shepherd in one of Vergil's poems looks at his lambs, all skin and bones, and concludes, "some eye or other is bewitching them [fascinat]" – to which the commentator Servius adds "[the shepherd] obliquely indicates that he has a handsome flock, since it was worth afflicting with the evil eye [fascinari]". Any unusual felicity or success was felt to be subject to the unspecific but powerful force of envy [invidia]. That is why everyone from soldiers to infants to triumphing generals needed a fascinum, a remedy against the evil eye, an antidote, something that would make the evil wisher look away.

Invidia as emotion The experience of invidia, as Robert A. Kaster notes, is invariably an unpleasant one, whether feeling invidia or finding oneself its object. Invidia at the thought of another's good may be merely begrudging, Kaster observes, or begrudging and covetous at the same time: "I can feel dolor ["pain, sorrow, heartache"] at seeing your good, just because it is your good, period, or I can feel that way because the good is yours and not mine." Such invidia is morally indefensible: compare the Aesop fable "The Dog in the Manger". But by far the most common usage in Latin of invidia occurs in contexts where the sense of justice has been offended, and pain is experienced at the sight of undeserved wealth, prestige or authority, exercised without shame (pudor); this is the close parallel with Greek nemesis (νέμεσις).

Latin literature Invidia, defined as uneasy emotion denied by the shepherd Melipoeus in Virgil's Eclogue 1. In Latin, invidia is the Greek personification of Nemesis and Phthonus. Invidia can be for literary purposes a goddess and Roman equivalent to Nemesis in Greek mythology as it received cultus, notably at her sanctuary around Rhamnous north of Marathon, Greece. Ovid describes the personification of Invidia at length in the Metamorphoses (2.760-832):

Her face was sickly pale, her whole body lean and wasted, and she squinted horribly; her teeth were discoloured and decayed, her poisonous breast of a greenish hue, and her tongue dripped venom. … Gnawing at others, and being gnawed, she was herself her own torment.

Allegorical invidia Among Christians, Invidia is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. In the allegorical mythography of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the three heads of Cerberus sometimes represent three kinds of invidia. In Late Gothic and Renaissance iconography, Invidia is personified invariably as a woman. Cesare Ripa's influential Iconologia (Rome, 1603) represented Invidia with a serpent coiled round her breast and biting her heart, "to signify her self-devouring bitterness; she also raises one hand to her mouth to show she cares only for herself". The representational tradition drew on Latin authors such as Ovid, Horace, and Pliny, as well as Andrea Alciato's emblem book and Jacopo Sannazaro. Alciato portrayed her devouring her own heart in her anguish. Invidia is the fatal flaw of Iago in Shakespeare's Othello: "O you are well tuned now; but I'll set down the pegs that make this music." (Othello II.i).

Modern usage of the term The name of the Nvidia Corporation comes from Invidia in Roman mythology. Invidia is also the name of a battle theme in Final Fantasy XV.

See also (Goddesses of Justice): Astraea, Dike, Themis, Prudentia (Goddesses of Injustice): Adikia (Aspects of Justice): (see also: Triple deity/Triple Goddess (neopaganism)) (Justice) Themis/Dike/Justitia (Lady Justice), Raguel (the Angel of Justice) (Retribution) Nemesis/Rhamnousia/Rhamnusia/Adrasteia/Invidia (Redemption) Eleos/Soteria/Clementia, Zadkiel/Zerachiel (the Angel of Mercy)

Notes

References Peter Aronoff, 2003. (Bryn Mawr Classical Review 20) Archived 2006-08-27 at the Wayback Machine: Review of David Konstan and Keith Rutter, eds. Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2003; ISBN 0-7486-1603-9).

External links

The dictionary definition of Invidia at Wiktionary

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Invidia

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Invidia claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Invidia before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Invidia ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Invidia

In research: Invidia appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Invidia in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Invidia is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Ancient Roman religion, Emotions, Justice deities, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Invidia outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Invidia in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Invidia means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Invidia out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Invidia in simple terms?

Why does Invidia matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Invidia?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Invidia.