Mare Nostrum Mare Nostrum Mare Nostrum (Latin for "Our Sea") was a Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. In Classical Latin it was pronounced [ˈma.rɛ ˈnɔs.trũ], and in Ecclesiastical Latin it is pronounced [ˈma.ɾe ˈnos.trum]. In the years following the unification of Italy in 1861, Italian nationalists who saw Italy as the successor state to the Roman Empire attempted to revive the term. The term "mare nostrum" originally was used by Romans to refer to the Tyrrhenian Sea, following their conquest of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica during the Punic Wars with Carthage. By 30 BC, Roman domination extended from the Iberian Peninsula
Operation Mare Nostrum and Italian Air Force. The navy units deployed consisted of: The air units involved helicopters, one MM P180 aircraft equipped with FLIR, two Camcopter S-100 unmanned aerial vehicles on board "San Giusto" ship and two maritime patrol aircraft. There was also one forward logistic site in Lampedusa for logistics support. According to Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, the government spent about €114 million ($142 million) on Operation Mare Nostrum. Foreign contributions Slovenia was the sole external contributor to the operation. It provided its patrol vessel "Triglav", which assisted in general surveillance of the waters surrounding Lampedusa from December 15th, 2013