Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatum

[e22big]

I am trying to understand this phase from virgil

"Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatum"

Most of the translation I found is that of the "Roman, a race that dominate the earth and wear a toga". However there is not a single word in this sentence that means earth or world (or so I thought) so I wonder if the more precise translation should be "Roman, a ruling race that wear toga"

My knowledge in Latin is absolutely minimum so I am not sure on saying this myself, can any one give a comment on this?

 

[scrabulista]

Welcome to the Forum, e22big. Please use descriptive titles in your post.

Let's take a look at the entire sentence (Aeneid, I. 279-83)

Quin aspera Iuno,
quae mare nunc terrasque metu caelumque fatigat,
consilia in melius referet, mecumque fovebit
Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam:
sic placitum.

The verb is fovebit = "she will favor;" "and with me she will favor the Romans, masters of things and a toga-wearing race."

res (whence rerum), is a word with a wide variety of meanings. Also many English translations will be phrased loosely to make the story more readable to an English-speaking audience.

 

[e22big]

Thank you scrabulista, so it is "res" as in res publica?

Forgive my foolishness, I simply see the people often translate this Augustan paraphrase as Roman ruler of the earth and the toga wearing race, so initially I understand that rerum would have mean something like "world, or earth".

if that the case can it be also translated as "Roman, master of the universe" or something like that?