[3] Early Romans were an agrarian civilization and, functionally, most of their original pantheon of gods — as against the later ones they adapted to Greek stereotypes — were of a rural nature with figures such as Pomona, Ceres, Flora, Dea Dia; so it was apt to have a god supervising the basics of organic fertilization.
Modern writers later elaborated upon and exaggerated the significance of Sterquilinus/Sterculius and other "earthy" deities of antiquity, sometimes with moralistic disapproval.
One editor of An Encyclopædia of Plants, published in 1836, related that Sterculius was the god of the privy, from stercus, excrement.
It has been well observed by a French author, that the Romans, in the madness of paganism, finished by deifying the most immodest objects and the most disgusting actions.
They had the gods Sterculius, Crepitus, Priapus; and the goddesses Caca, Pertunda, &c, &c.[4]Sterculius was featured in "Peace, Love and Understanding" (1992), the second pilot episode of Beavis and Butt-Head, where his spirit rose from a port-a-potty crushed by a monster truck; he is correctly identified by Butt-Head.