SILICERNIUM, among the Romans, was a feaſt of a private nature, provided for the dead ſome time after the funeral. It conſiſted of beans, lettuce, bread, eggs, &c. Theſe were laid upon the tomb, and they fooliſhly believed that the dead would come out for the repaſt. What was left was generally burnt on the ſtone. The word ſilicernium is derived from ſilix and cena, i. e. "a ſupper upon a ſtone." Eating what had thus been provided for the dead, was eſteemed a mark of the moſt miſerable poverty. A ſimilar entertainment was made by the Greeks at the tombs of the deceaeſed; but it was uſual among them to treat the ghoſts with the fragments from the feaſt of the living. See FUNERAL and INFERNAL.