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
Jove Books published in the 1970s were the series of historical novels written by John Jakes, the Kent Family Chronicles, beginning with "The Bastard" (1974), which were well-timed for popular interest in the U.S. Revolutionary War and the bicentennial celebration of independence. More modest or more critical than commercial successes published in the decade included "Man on Fire: A Novel of Revolution" by Bruce Douglas Reeves (1971) and several novels by Barry N. Malzberg. A series of "crossover" books, bridging prose fiction and comics, was the eight-volume "Weird Heroes" series of anthologies and novels (1975–77), where new superheroes and pulp-magazine-style adventure heroes