AH Challenge, Monaco the Mighty

[NapoleonXIV]

Given any POD you like make the Prinicpate of Monaco among the 3 greatest powers in Europe. The development has to be extra plausible. You can make Monaco up to the size of Switzerland and/or the size of whatever larger entity it came from. Extra points if it remains the size it is now.

 

[pa_dutch]

I'd start back when Monaco was founded as the Greek colony of Monoikos... Perhaps from there it becomes the capital of a Greco-Gallic empire of some kind? For that period of antiquity, Monaco would be one of the greatest powers of Europe.