What is "ennia"

The gens Ennia was a family of Calabrian descent. It is known chiefly from a single individual, Quintus Ennius, a soldier, dramatist, and poet, whom the Romans came to regard as the father of their literature. Ennius was born at Rudiae, a village near Brundisium in Calabria, in 239 BC. He claimed descent from the ancient lords of Messapia. As a young man, he served as a soldier in the Roman army, rising to the rank of centurion. At the age of thirty-eight, he came to Rome in the train of Marcus Porcius Cato. Most of his works have been lost, or exist only in fragments, but he was greatly influential on later Roman writers, including Vergil.