"World leaders"

Callaina

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I need to express the concept of "world leaders" (i.e. all the various heads of state, spoken of collectively). What would be the best way to do this?
 

Agrippa

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Omnium terrarum principes: sunt qui homines appellandi sint nequissimi. :eek-2:
 

Glabrigausapes

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I like gentium used metonymically, and maybe ductor to make it more of a calque: gentium ductores.
 

Pacifica

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Apud Arpinatem nostrum scriptum videmus: orbis terrarum domini (Cic. agr. 2, 15).
Diverso quidem sensu (sed forsitan nihil obstet quin novo sensu adhibeatur).
 

Glabrigausapes

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orbis terrarum domini
I wonder if Milton had a similar such Latinism (or Hebraism) in mind when he wrote 'Lords of the World besides', not the he couldn't have come up with it on his own.
 

Agrippa

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Pacifica

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Num necesse sit nescio, sed si perspicue dicere volumus eos qui singulas terras regunt neque eos qui totum orbem, forsitan dicere liceat diversarum terrarum principes.
 

Callaina

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Thanks, everyone, for the great suggestions! :)
 

EstQuodFulmineIungo

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The reference was wrong. Here is the correct excerpt:
Suet. Ner. 36_1 dixit:
Nec minore saevitia foris et in exteros grassatus est. Stella crinita, quae summis potestatibus exitium portendere vulgo putatur, per continuas noctes oriri coeperat
 

Callaina

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Dux mundi.
I thought about that, but to me that implies that the person/people in question are leaders of the entire world, whereas I meant more like individual heads of state.
 

Michael Zwingli

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Dux mundi.
to me that implies that the person/people in question are leaders of the entire world, whereas I meant more like individual heads of state.
Yeah, and in addition to that dux is a very general term for "leader", whereas if you want to relate the modern sense of "heads of state", you might have to get a bit creative; no single existing term seems able to convey that meaning. I think of a modern head of state more in terms of being an administrative and political leader, a chief executive, than a "ruler" per se. With this in mind, you might have praefecti politiarum ("those who have been put in charge of the states")? Alternatively, you might have principes politiarum (saeculores). If you don't mind a Late Latin term, you might have officiarii principales politiarum.

As an analogy to the foergoing, note that one of the official Latin titles of the British monarch is Consortionis Populorum Princeps, which is officially translated as "Head of the Commonwealth", more literally "Head of the Community of Peoples".
 
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