Bident Jupiter (also known as Jove, Etruscan Tinia), the trident or bident thus represents a forked lightning bolt. In ancient Italy, thunder and lightning were read as signs of divine will, wielded by the sky god Jupiter in three forms or degrees of severity (see "manubia"). The Romans drew on Etruscan traditions for the interpretation of these signs. A tile found at Urbs Salvia in Picenum depicts an unusual composite Jove, "fairly bristling with weapons": a lightning bolt, a bident, and a trident, uniting the realms of sky, earth, and sea, and representing the three degrees of ominous lightning (see also
John Michael Wright been able to find prestigious work. Indeed, Waterhouse speaks of him engaging in "the most deliberate and unblushing toadying to Cromwell" in his 1658 painting of a small posthumous portrait of Elizabeth Claypole, Oliver Cromwell's daughter (now in the National Portrait Gallery). This is an allegorical portrait depicting Elizabeth as Minerva, leaning on a carved relief representing the goddess springing from the head of Jove with the motto ""Ab Jove Principium"" – an allusion to Cromwell himself, whose cameo portrait she holds. Seemingly, he was also willing to work the other side of the political divide: in 1659 he painted