Fuscina
τρίαινα
Fuscina (τρίαινα), a trident; more commonly called tridens, meaning tridens stimulus, because it was originally a three-pronged goad, used to incite horses to greater swiftness. Neptune was supposed to be armed with it when he drove his chariot, and it thus became his usual attribute, no doubt with an allusion also to the use of the same instrument in spearing fish. It is represented in the second cut on p. 416. (Hom. Il. 12.27, Od. 4.506, 5.292; Verg. G. 1.13, Aen. 1.138, 145, 2.610 Cic. N. D. 1.3. 6, § 101; Philostr. Imag. 2.14.) The trident was also attributed to Nereus (Verg. A. 2.418) and to the Tritons (Att. ap. Cic. N. D. 2.3. 5, § 89; Mart. de Spect. 26, 3.)
In the contests of gladiators the Retiarius was armed with a trident. (Juv. 2.143, 8.203.) [GLADIATOR]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.