In Parshas Balak, Bilam twice describes himself as “shesum ha'ayin”.1 The meaning of this phrase, often translated as “[with] the open eye”,2 is obscure; Rav Yehoshua ibn Shu'aib understands that Bilam's malevolent power operated via the gaze of his evil eye.3 In support of the dangers of eye beams, he cites a legend of Alexander the Great, who once vanquished some “beasts that kill with the gaze of their eyes” (basilisks) by instructing his soldiers to fashion mirrors, which reflected the beasts' lethal gaze back upon themselves, thereby killing them all.4
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