Nenia
(better than
Naenia). A name given by the Romans to
the funeral dirge in honour of the dead, sung to the accompaniment of flutes, at first by the
relatives, in later times by hired mourners (
praeficae). There was also a
goddess so called, the dirge personified, who had a chapel outside the Porta Viminalis. See
Funus, p. 699.