Pax Imperium

[Anonymous]

Which is gramatically correct? Or are they both correct?

Pax Imperium or Pax Imperia?

I think Imperium means something like "power, power status, authority, or strong nation", but I'm not sure if Imperia is a meaningful word in Latin, other than a geographical location.

Only reason I ask is because I was going to do a project called "Pax Imperium" but someone told me the correct form would be "Pax Imperia", but I think I'm right and they are wrong...but now I'm not sure.

 

[Iynx]

I'm afraid that, in my opinion at least, both these forms are incorrect.

Pax, pacis is a feminine noun meaning "peace".

(It is customary to remember a Latin noun in two forms, the nominative and genitive singular, together with the gender, because these three pieces of information tell us --in most instances-- everything we need to know to use the noun).

The famous Pax Romanum may be introducing a note of confusion here, the apparently neuter -um ending leading one to believe (incorrectly) that pax must be neuter. But Romanum is (I think) not an adjective at all here, but a noun in the genitive plural; literally we are talking not about the Roman Peace, but about the Peace of the Romans. (The genitive plural of Romanus, "the Roman", would regularly be Romanorum, but sometimes the -or- gets left out).

Because pax is in fact feminine, an adjective modifying it must also be feminine. There is an adjective Romanus, -a, -um, and one does often see Pax Romana (rather than Romanum), the second word here being an adjective, with a feminine -a ending.

If there were an adjective imperius, -a, -um, meaning "imperial", then pax imperia would be correct, meaning "imperial peace". But no such form is (as far as I know) authoritatively attested. Imperium is a noun; the usual adjective for "imperial" is imperialis, -e.

(If we find in a dictionary an adjective listed as something-us, -a, -um, we know that we are looking at an adjective "of the Ist /IInd"; if the listing is something-is, -e we have what is called "an adjective of two endings". In either instance this tells us-- most of the time-- everything we need to know to use the adjective).

So "Imperial Peace" in the nominative, should in my opinion be Pax Imperialis.