A rather possessive way, it would seem, to refer to a geologically intermittent arm of the Atlantic Ocean. But, practically speaking, what else were they going to call it? Proper names were reserved for more distant bodies of water.

Some may object that mare nostrum comes a little too close to “Cosa Nostra,” the name of a 20th-century crime syndicate, and see the resemblance as more than coincidental. That would be an oversimplification, of course. Aside from palaces, mansions and monuments, what is Roman engineering most famous for? Public works: aqueducts, fountains, baths, sewers, and even public toilets. And one can include the Colosseum as a means of maintaining public order.

Did Rome really represent a “small government, big business” ideal? It did have booms and busts, feasts and famines, as well as generally regressive taxation. But it also had a giant food bank and distributed supplies on the dole. The catch phrase panem et circenses — “bread and circuses” — seems to sum up socialism’s and capitalism’s pitfalls in an unsustainable combination.

The Romans would have had no idea what we’re talking about. They could object that our concepts don’t apply to their world. Business as government or vice-versa? They would not have understood the conclusion that Adam Smith drew from his experience with the Scottish Tobacco Lords, that a government of, by and for business would be the worst form of government imaginable. For the Romans, economics was a concept that lay in the distant future.

However, even organized crime is “organized” because it is a “state within a state” and has laws of its own. The Roman empire began to realize, in its own way, that government functions as a “guardian” institution, in Jane Jacobs’ terms. As such, it is a countervailing power to that of the “trader” class.

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge did say, in an address to the Society of American Newspaper Editors on January 17, 1925, that “the chief business of the American people is business.” His remark is often misquoted and taken out of context; Coolidge was considering quite thoughtfully the role of a free press as a cultural institution separate from both government and commerce.