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
Themes in Titus Andronicus delighted, the author must have felt he was creating a drama that would appeal also to the cultivated, who knew Seneca and Ovid." The vast range of mythological and classical references have often been pointed to as evidence of an educated target audience; references include Priam, the Styx, Scythia, Hecuba, Polymnestor, Titan, Phoebe, Hymenaeus, Ajax, Laertes, Odysseus, Olympus, Prometheus, Semiramis, Vulcan, Lucrece, Aeneas, Dido, Venus, Saturn, Philomel, Dian, Acteon, Jove, Pyramus, the Cocytus, Tereus, Cerberus, Orpheus, Tarquin, Cornelia, Apollo, Pallas, Mercury, Hector, Enceladus, Typhon, Alcides, Mars, Astraea, Pluto, Cyclops, Verginia and Sinon. With this in mind, some critics suggest that