empires suck.
and not just generally speaking . they suck your money, your energy, and the lives of your best youth.
bongs should know this better than anyone else, even if you built one making sure that everyone else was gutting each other and conquering literal savages.
the italian model of city/regional state of old would be the comfiest there is. too bad you big, northern centralized states decided to come and take a piece of fractured, disunited italy and made this model unviable.
at least that's my opinion.