Formerly I was the trunk of a wild fig- tree, an useless log: when the artificer, in doubt whether he should make a stool or a Priapus of me, determined that I should be a god. Henceforward I became a god, the greatest terror of thieves and birds: for my right hand restrains thieves, and a bloody- looking pole stretched out from my frightful middle: but a reed fixed upon the crown of my head terrifies the mischievous birds, and hinders them from settling in these new gardens. Before this the fellow- slave bore dead corpses thrown out of their narrow cells to this place, in order to be deposited in paltry coffins. This place stood a common sepulcher for the miserable mob, for the buffoon Pantelabus, and Nomentanus the rake. Here a column assigned a thousand feet[ of ground] in front, and three hundred toward the fields: that the burial- place should not descend to the heirs of the estate. Now one may live in the Esquiliae,[ since it is made] a healthy place; and walk upon an open terrace, where lately the melancholy passengers beheld the ground frightful with white bones; though both the thieves and wild beasts accustomed to infest this place, do not occasion me so much care and trouble, as do[ these hags], that turn people 's minds by their incantations and drugs. These I can not by any means destroy nor hinder, but that they will gather bones and noxious herbs, as soon as the fleeting moon has shown her beauteous face. 