Book 2
10.4
The advantages which excite envy have already been stated. Nearly all the actions or possessions which make men desire glory or honor and long for fame, and the favors of fortune, create envy, especially when men long for them themselves, or think that they have a right to them, or the possession of which makes them slightly superior or slightly inferior.
10.5
And it is evident whom men envy, for it has just been stated by implication. They envy those who are near them in time, place, age, and reputation, whence it was said, Kinship knows how to envy also;According to the scholiast, from Aeschylus. and those with whom they are in rivalry, who are those just spoken of; for no man tries to rival those who lived ten thousand years ago, or are about to be born, or are already dead; nor those who live near the Pillars of Hercules;Two rocks at the east end of the Straits of Gibraltar, supposed to be the limit westwards of the ancient world. nor those who, in his own opinion or in that of others, are either far inferior or superior to him; and the people and things which one envies are on the same footing.That is, no one will attempt to compete with them in their special branch of study. Roemer reads καὶ πρὸς τοὺς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, translated by Jebb as if there were a full stop at ὑπερέχειν. In like manner we vie with those engaged in such or such pursuits.
