A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why does kingship arise not from mere force or bloodline, but from approval, divine will, and institutional founding?
2. Abstract
Kingship arises not from mere force or bloodline, but from approval, divine will, and institutional founding, because kingship is not simply a matter of “the strongest man” or “the man of the rightful bloodline” standing above others. It must be accepted as the public center that can continuously govern the whole community.
Force can subdue opponents. Bloodline can provide a story of succession and a basis for legitimacy. But those alone tend to leave rule at the level of private superiority. Kingship arises only when rule is accepted by the community as a public order that should be obeyed, justified in relation to divine will, and fixed into a sustainable form through institutional founding.
What Livy Book 1 shows is that, in Rome’s founding history, usurpation and founding kingship are divided precisely by this difference. Force and bloodline can become the material of kingship, but they do not become kingship by themselves. Only when private superiority is translated into public order through approval, divine will, and institutional founding does kingship arise as the center of the state.
3. Method
This study follows the three-layer structure of TLA.
In Layer 1, it organizes as facts the events in Livy Book 1 related to royal succession, usurpation, restoration, augury, city founding, sacred rites, legal order, and the founding of the senate. In Layer 2, it connects these facts to structures such as kingship, public approval and civic recognition, the senate, the heavenly order, royal and clan networks, and the founding phase of the community.
It also refers to OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.07 and reinterprets kingship not as mere personal domination, but as the establishment of a user who is involved in the central control variables of the community. In particular, this article examines why kingship requires not only force or bloodline, but also approval, divine will, and institutional founding, through the concepts of role, scope of responsibility, control variables, access classification, and OS succession design.
4. Layer 1: Fact
What Layer 1 confirms is that, in Book 1, kingship and political rule are not determined simply by strength or lineage alone.
In Chapter 3, Proca had bequeathed kingship to Numitor, yet Amulius seized the throne by force. Bloodline and force are both present here, but the rule is described not as the establishment of kingship, but as usurpation. In other words, blood and power alone can still produce rule that stands against public order.
In Chapter 6, Numitor calls an assembly, reveals the twins’ origin and Amulius’ crimes, and the crowd approves the royal title and authority. Here, kingship is not completed merely by the restoration of bloodline or by forceful revenge. It gains public form only after communal approval.
Also, from Chapters 6 to 7, Romulus and Remus do not decide the ruler of the new city by strength or seniority alone, but submit the decision to the gods through augury. In this case, rule is presented to the community not as the result of a private struggle between brothers, but as a just beginning in light of divine will.
Further, in Chapter 8, after becoming king, Romulus organizes sacred rites, gathers the people, establishes legal order, arranges the insignia of authority, and founds the senate. The key point here is that kingship does not remain at the level of a victorious individual, but moves toward institutional founding. Romulus understood kingship not as the maintenance of private superiority, but as the creation of public order.
5. Layer 2: Order
In Layer 2, kingship is organized as the central structure that carries out the founding, expansion, and preservation of order in the state through the shortest route. But kingship does not arise from military success alone. Layer 2 presents kingship as reinforced by military achievement, divine will, public approval, senatorial approval, marriage networks, and crisis response. This means that kingship arises not as the rule of a strong man, but through multiple circuits of legitimation.
Public approval and civic recognition are also structures that transform rule from mere subjection into the will of the community. From this, it becomes clear that royal office cannot gain public form merely because someone possesses force or bloodline. It becomes state kingship only when it is approved by the community.
The structure of the heavenly order places divine signs, omens, and sacred rites as the higher frame that legitimizes human politics, war, and founding acts. Kingship needs divine will because rule must be separated from mere victory and presented to the community as a “right beginning.” Divine will functions as the device that translates the possibility of rule opened by force into public order.
The senate, further, is the structure that supports the legitimacy and continuity of kingship. This shows that kingship cannot depend only on the body or prestige of one person. It requires an institutional support that can endure the continuation of the community. Institutional founding is the act that transforms kingship from “a strong individual” into “a sustainable governing structure.”
From the viewpoint of OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.07, this becomes even clearer. In R1.30.07, the subjects connected to the OS are users, and users have roles, scopes of responsibility, control variables, and access classifications. In this sense, kingship is the establishment of a core user with strong involvement in the central control variables of the community. The king is not merely a person of personal superiority. He arises as a role that makes judgments in the name of the OS and engages especially with the control variables A, IA, H, and V.
Even so, kingship does not arise merely because such a user possesses exclusive access. That user must also be approved by the community, justified through divine will, and fixed into a sustainable operating form through institutional founding. Only then does kingship arise as a public center.
From the viewpoint of OS succession design in R1.30.07, kingship does not simply mean ruling in the present. It means that the role itself is institutionalized in a way that can endure the continuity of the community. Bloodline alone cannot guarantee that succession. Force alone cannot guarantee succession of role. Approval, divine will, and institutional founding are necessary because they transform kingship from a private victory into a role that can be endure succession.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Therefore, kingship arises not from mere force or bloodline, but from approval, divine will, and institutional founding, because kingship must be the public center of order rather than a form of private superiority.
Force can open the path to rule. Bloodline can provide a story of succession. But those alone still tend to leave rule at the level of private superiority, and make it difficult for the whole community to accept it as a public order that should be obeyed. Approval connects that rule to the will of the community. Divine will justifies it in relation to a higher order. Institutional founding fixes it into a sustainable form. Kingship arises only when this whole set comes together.
Amulius shows that even with force and bloodline, rule can still become usurpation. Romulus shows that only when the possibility of rule opened by force is translated into divine will, approval, and institution does it become the kingship of a state.
In the language of OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.07, kingship arises when a core user who is involved in the central control variables of the community is approved by the community, justified by a higher order, and institutionalized as a role that can be endure succession. Therefore kingship is neither “a strong individual” nor “a noble bloodline.” It is the form in which a public center arises, one that has converged toward the purpose of the whole community.
7. Implications for the Present
This point applies directly to management power, founder authority, and succession design in modern organizations. Even when modern organizations do not take the form of kingship, a person cannot become the stable center of governance merely because he is capable, belongs to the founder’s family, or holds a title.
In terms of OS Organizational Design Theory, succession is not merely a personnel issue. It is a design problem of how to transfer roles, scopes of responsibility, control variables, and access classifications safely. If only the formal title is transferred while the ability to operate the control variables is not, the organization changes in substance. This is structurally the same as the fact that kingship in antiquity did not arise from bloodline alone.
Therefore, even in modern organizations, the true establishment of the center requires ability, lineage or historical continuity, approval, normative justification, and institutional design. The founding of Romulus shows the classical model of this structure.
8. Conclusion
Kingship arises not from mere force or bloodline, but from approval, divine will, and institutional founding, because kingship is not simply a matter of “the strong man” or “the man of the right family” standing above others. It must be accepted as the public center that can continuously govern the whole community.
What Livy Book 1 shows is that the difference between the usurpation of Amulius and the founding kingship of Romulus lay exactly here.
Force opens the path to rule.
Bloodline provides a story of succession.
Approval transforms it into the will of the community.
Divine will connects it to a higher order.
Institutional founding fixes it into a sustainable form.
Only when this whole set comes together does kingship arise not as “a strong individual,” but as “the public center of the state.”
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.07