Belief in the evil eye dates back to Greek Classical antiquity. It is referenced by Hesiod, Callimachus, Plato, Diodorus Siculus, Theocritus, Plutarch, Heliodorus, Pliny the Elder, and Aulus Gellius. Peter Walcot's Envy and the Greeks (1978) listed more than one hundred works by these and other authors mentioning the evil eye. However, this is a westernized speculation on the origin of the evil eye. Western Asian and North African countries claim the origins of the Evil Eye originate back to Sumerian (modern day Iraq) and Egyptian roots.