Word order : Appia longarum regina viarum

[pfmireland]

Greetings from Ireland,
Going to Rome for the first time in my life this weekend, having studied Latin for 3 years in school some 40 years ago and wanting to visit the Via Appia Antica more than anything else, I found myself gawking around the Internet.
I found various versions of the phrase "(Appia) longarum regina viarum (est)", attributed to Publius Papinius Statius.
My question regards the grammar of this short phrase, rather than its origin.
If we ignore the sometimes omitted words 'Appia' and 'est', should it not read "Regina longarum viarum".
Why would 'longarum' come before 'regina'?
While I'm at it, suppose just for fun I wanted to change the 'long-' to refer to 'Appia', rather than to the 'via-', should it then read "Appia longa regina viarum", which I would then translate as " The long Appian Way, Queen of Roads"?
(I can't remember if there were commas in Latin; don't think so)
Many thanks.

 

[Pacifica]

Going to Rome for the first time in my life this weekend, having studied Latin for 3 years in school some 40 years ago and wanting to visit the Via Appia Antica more than anything else, I found myself gawking around the Internet.
I found various versions of the phrase "(Appia) longarum regina viarum (est)", attributed to Publius Papinius Statius.
My question regards the grammar of this short phrase, rather than its origin.
If we ignore the sometimes omitted words 'Appia' and 'est', should it not read "Regina longarum viarum".
Why would 'longarum' come before 'regina'?

Latin word order is rather flexible. In this case, the phrase comes from poetry so the word order was largely dictated by the meter. But many different orders would be grammatically correct.

While I'm at it, suppose just for fun I wanted to change the 'long-' to refer to 'Appia', rather than to the 'via-', should it then read "Appia longa regina viarum", which I would then translate as " The long Appian Way, Queen of Roads"?

That's correct.

(I can't remember if there were commas in Latin; don't think so)

In Roman times there weren't. But they've been used for a long time by people writing and editing Latin texts.

 

[pfmireland]

Latin word order is rather flexible. In this case, the phrase comes from poetry so the word order was largely dictated by the meter. But many different orders would be grammatically correct.

That's correct.

In Roman times there weren't. But they've been used for a long time by people writing and editing Latin texts.

Thanks so much.