Abident is a two-pronged implement resembling apitchfork. InRenaissance art, the bident is associated with the godPluto.
The word 'bident' was brought into the English language before 1871,[1] and is derived from the Latinbidentis, meaning "having two teeth (or prongs)."[2]
Ancient Egyptians used a bident as a fishing tool, sometimes attached to a line and sometimes fastened with flight feathers.[3] Two-pronged weapons mainly ofbronze appear in the archaeological record ofancient Greece.[4]
InRoman agriculture, thebidens (genitivebidentis) was a double-bladeddrag hoe[5] or two-prongedmattock,[6] although a modern distinction between "mattock" and "rake" should not be pressed.[7] It was used to break up and turn ground that was rocky and hard.[8] Thebidens is pictured onmosaics and other forms ofRoman art, as well astombstones to mark the occupation of the deceased.[9]
The spear ofAchilles is said by a few sources to be bifurcated.[10] Achilles had been instructed in its use byPeleus, who had in turn learned from the centaurChiron. The implement may have associations withThessaly. Ablack-figuredamphora fromCorneto (Etruscan Tarquinia) depicts a scene from thehunt for the Calydonian boar, part of a series of adventures that took place in the general area. Peleus is accompanied byCastor, who is attacking the boar with a two-pronged spear.[11]
A bronze trident found in an Etruscan tomb atVetulonia seems to have had an adaptable center prong that could be removed for use as a bident.[12] Akylix found atVulci in ancient Etruria was formerly interpreted as depicting Pluto (Greek: ΠλούτωνPlouton) with a bident. A black-bearded man holding a peculiarly two-pronged instrument reaches out in pursuit of a woman, thought to bePersephone. The vase was subjected to improper reconstruction, however, and the couple are more likely Poseidon andAethra.[13] OnLydian coins that showPlouton abducting Persephone in his four-horse chariot, the god holds his characteristicscepter, the ornamented point of which has sometimes been interpreted as a bident.[14] Other visual representations of the bident on ancient objects appear to have been either modern-era reconstructions, or in the possession of figures not securely identified as the ruler of the underworld.[15]
TheCambridge ritualistA.B. Cook saw the bident as an implement that might be wielded byJupiter, the chief god of the Roman pantheon, in relation to Romanbidental ritual, the consecration of a place struck by lightning by means of a sacrificial sheep, called abidens because it was of an age to have two teeth.[16] In the hands of Jupiter (also known as Jove, EtruscanTinia), 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 thesky god Jupiter in three forms or degrees of severity (seemanubia). The Romans drew onEtruscan traditions for the interpretation of these signs. A tile found atUrbs Salvia inPicenum 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 alsoSummanus).[17] Cook regarded the trident as the Greek equivalent of the Etruscan bident, each representing a type of lightning used to communicate the divine will; since he accepted theLydian origin of the Etruscans, he traced both forms to the sameMesopotamia source.[18]
The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in theHercules Furens ("Hercules Enraged") ofSeneca.Dis (the Roman equivalent of GreekPlouton) uses a three-pronged spear to drive offHercules as he attempts to invade Pylos. Seneca also refers to Dis as the "Infernal Jove"[19] or the "dire Jove",[20] the Jove who gives dire or ill omens(dirae), just as in the Greek tradition,Hades is sometimes identified as a "chthonic Zeus". That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantinescholiast, who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.[21]
InWestern art of theMiddle Ages, classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork.[22]Early Christian writers identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils.[23] In theRenaissance, the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto in art. Pluto, withCerberus at his side, is shown holding the bident in the mythological ceiling mural painted byRaphael's workshop for theVilla Farnesina (theLoggia di Psiche, 1517–18). In a scene depicting a council of the gods, the three brothers Jove, Pluto, and Neptune are grouped closely, with a Cupid standing before them. Neptune holds the trident. Elsewhere in theloggia, aputto holds a bident.[24]
Perhaps influenced by this work,Agostino Carracci had depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for his paintingPluto (1592), in which the god holds insteadhis characteristic key.[25]
InCaravaggio'sGiove, Nettuno e Plutone (ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based onalchemical allegory, Pluto – with his 3-headed dog, Cerberus – holds a bident. (Immediately beside him, Neptune is shown with a trident. Some writers have confused the two figures; Neptune's identity is confirmed by his embrace of the Hippocamp – the "sea horse" with fins for forelegs, and whose markings appear to repeat the trident in a stylized, perhaps symbolic, form.)
bident was a spear with two barbed points ... thrust at the fish ... fish spears of the South Sea Islanders ... same manner ... as the bident by the ancient Egyptians
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