Here again one is warranted in looking for a substantial economy to be effected by such a centralised authority, and a consequent lighter aggregate burden on the subjects.

Doubtless, the "overhead charges" would not be reduced to their practicable minimum.

Such a governmental establishment, with its bureaucratic personnel, its "civil list" and its privileged classes, would not be conducted on anything like a parsimonious footing.

There is no reason to apprehend any touch of modesty in the exactions of such a dynastic establishment for itself or in behalf of its underlying hierarchy of gentlefolk.
There is also to be counted in, in the concrete instance on which the argument here turns, a more or less considerable burden of contributions toward the maintenance and augmentation of that culture that has been the topic of so many encomiums.

At this point it should be recalled that it is the pattern of Periclean Athens that is continually in mind in these encomiums.