Sterculius, Stercutius
or STERQUILI'NUS, a surname of Saturnus, derived from Stercus, manure, because he had promoted agriculture by teaching the people the use of manure. This seems to have been the original meaning, though some Romans state that Sterculius was a surname of Picumnus, the son of Faunus, to whom likewise improvements in agriculture are ascribed. (Macr. 1.7; Serv. ad Aen. 9.4, 10.76; Lactant. 1.20; Plin. Nat. 17.9; August. De Civ. Dei, 18.15.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 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.