Prayer to Priapus

Two lines from the same first elegy of Tibullus as lares-004: the poet is listing what his poor farm will be furnished with.

And the god turns out to be a scarecrow. Ruber custos, the red guardian: a wooden Priapus was painted with red lead and set among the beds so that he might "frighten the birds with his savage sickle". The sickle is his genuine attribute, and it is pointed at sparrows.

There is no disrespect in this. In another elegy the same Tibullus asks the Lares not to be ashamed of having been cut from an old stump (lares-005), and his argument is a single one: rough wood is the real Roman holy thing, and marble a later luxury. A painted log among the apple trees is a deity like any other.

Note the verb: ponatur, let him be set up. This is not a prayer to Priapus but a provision concerning Priapus. A garden god is not petitioned — he is acquired.