A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why did even a founding state need not only the power of the king, but also an upper-level approval mechanism that complemented it?
2. Abstract
Even a founding state needed not only the power of the king, but also an upper-level approval mechanism that complemented it, because in an early community, although the king’s military power, decisiveness, and leadership could serve as the core for launching order, that power alone easily remained a form of private superiority and could not fully turn itself into a public order with continuity, legitimacy, and succession.
The power of the king could become the starting point that moved the community. But if that power was not complemented by an upper-level approval mechanism, kingship remained not the kingship of the community, but the rule of a strong individual. Therefore, what a founding state needed was not the king’s power alone, but a complementary device that could transform that power into the will of the community, a connection to higher order, and a sustainable structure.
What Livy Book 1 shows is that the kingship of Romulus was not mere military superiority. Through multiple devices such as ritual, approval, and the senate, it was translated into public order. A founding state certainly needs concentrated royal power. But precisely because it is a founding state, it also needs complementary devices that can transform the personal strength of the king into the continuing structure 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 city founding, kingship, augury, assemblies, popular approval, sacred rites, legal order, and the establishment of the senate. In Layer 2, it connects these facts to structures such as kingship, the senate, public approval and civic recognition, the heavenly order, and the founding phase.
It also refers to OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.10 and reinterprets kingship in a founding state not as mere personal domination, but as a core user strongly involved in the central control variables of the community. On that basis, it examines why the king’s power is not sufficient by itself and why it must be complemented by upper-level approval mechanisms, from the viewpoints of OS health, execution-environment health, approval channels, connection to higher order, continuity, and succession.
4. Layer 1: Fact
What Layer 1 confirms is that in Livy Book 1, kingship is not left as a mere result of force.
Romulus certainly possessed strong leadership as a founder and took the lead in city building and order formation. Yet his right to rule is not presented simply as the right of the victor. The struggle over rule between Romulus and Remus is connected to augury, and the establishment of kingship is presented as a beginning justified by divine order. What matters here is not merely the king’s power itself, but the form through which that power is accepted by the community.
Likewise, the restoration of Numitor does not end as a mere military recovery of power. An assembly is held, the twins’ origin and the crimes of Amulius are revealed, and through the approval of the crowd, the royal title and right to rule gain public form. Here too, power alone does not complete kingship. Popular approval is necessary.
Furthermore, after becoming king, Romulus arranges sacred rites, gathers the people, establishes legal order, prepares insignia of authority, and sets up the senate. This means that he did not intend to continue ruling only by his own strength. Rather, he sought to incorporate that strength into the continuing structure of the state. In other words, Rome’s founding history shows that even in a founding state, the king’s power alone was not enough. A device was needed to complement it and translate it into public order.
5. Layer 2: Order
In Layer 2, kingship has the role of carrying out the founding, expansion, and preservation of order in the shortest path, while its criterion is whether force, ritual, approval, and institutional design are integrated. This means that even in a founding state, the effectiveness of kingship is not measured by a single element. If the power of the king alone were enough to establish the state, then ritual, approval, and institutional design would be no more than secondary ornaments. But in fact, whether they are integrated is itself the standard for evaluating kingship. That means that even in a founding state, the power of the king becomes a public form that can bind the community together only when it is complemented by upper-level approval mechanisms.
The structure of the senate especially shows this need for complement. In Layer 2, the senate is defined as an upper decision-making body that strengthens kingship while also carrying its legitimacy and continuity. In the founding phase, it functions as an aid to the king and as a mechanism of approval, but when the throne is vacant, it becomes the ruling center itself. This shows that the senate is not merely an advisory group. It is a central complementary device that prevents the rupture of kingship and preserves the community even in moments of the king’s death or absence. In a founding state, the king certainly has great weight. But precisely for that reason, an upper-level approval device is needed so that everything does not depend on the king as an individual. The senate does not exist to deny the king’s power. Rather, it exists to incorporate that power into the continuing structure of the state.
The same is true of public approval and civic recognition. In Layer 2, public approval and civic recognition are defined as an approval device that transforms rule into “the will of the community.” This means that no matter how capable a king may be in a founding state, if his rule is not accepted by the people as a public form, it does not become the order of the community. Force may produce obedience, but it does not produce the will of the community. That is why an approval device is needed to complement the king’s power. When the king’s command is received not as “obedience to a person” but as “participation in the order of the community,” only then does the founding state achieve integration as a state.
In addition, the heavenly order and ritual order also function as part of an upper-level approval mechanism. In TLA Layer 2, divine will, omens, and ritual order have the role of legitimizing communal action and wrapping violence in the form of “right order.” This shows that what must be justified is not simply the king’s power itself, but that power in relation to higher order. In a founding state, the king often carries high-risk decisions such as war and city foundation. But if such decisions are received as merely personal acts of will, they easily leave inside the community the impression of private conflict or rule by fear. Ritual approval at a higher level separates that power from private violence and transforms it into a rightful beginning that the community can accept. Therefore, the upper-level approval mechanisms of a founding state include not only the senate and public approval, but also connection to divine order as a complex device of public legitimization.
From the viewpoint of OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.10, this problem can be understood through both A, IA, H, and V, and through execution-environment health. OS health is expressed as A × IA × H × V, and execution-environment health as M × T. Even if the king’s own judgment and leadership are strong, if his rule is not shared through IA, not incorporated into reward, punishment, and role order as H, not justified in light of the purpose of the community as V, and does not gain trust T on the side of the execution environment, then the health of the state as a whole cannot become high. Here the upper-level approval mechanism transforms the king’s power from an individual judgment into a form of communal control, and connects the king’s decisions to the operating conditions of the community as a whole. In this sense, upper-level approval mechanisms do not merely restrain the king’s power. They are complementary mechanisms that transform that power into a form that can operate across the whole OS.
The concept of the OS decision-maker and deviation from OS purpose is also important. The OS decision-maker holds the role of making judgments in the name of the OS, but the failure condition appears when the decision-maker’s desires, self-preservation, lust for power, or need for approval override the purpose of the OS. This means that even in a founding state, the power of the king alone carries danger. Upper-level approval mechanisms are necessary not because the king is bad, but because even a highly capable king always carries the danger of deviation from OS purpose or substitution of the objective function if he rules alone. Bodies such as the senate and approval mechanisms cannot eliminate this danger completely, but at least they have a corrective function: they pull the king’s judgment back toward the purpose of the whole community and restrain privatization of power. Even a founding state needs upper-level approval mechanisms because the stronger the king’s power is, the more necessary it becomes to correct and converge that power toward the purpose of the community.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Therefore, even a founding state needs not only the power of the king, but also upper-level approval mechanisms that complement it, because the king’s power may become the starting point for launching order, but by itself it cannot sufficiently produce public legitimacy, communal approval, continuity, and succession. The senate prevents the rupture of kingship, public approval and civic recognition transform rule into the will of the community, and ritual order connects that rule to higher order. Only through this complex complement does the kingship of a founding state become not “the rule of a strong individual,” but “the kingship of a state that binds the community together.”
In a founding state, the king’s military power, decisiveness, and leadership are certainly indispensable. Yet precisely because it is a founding state, the king’s power must not be treated as the completed form of rule. Rather, what is required is a complementary mechanism that translates that power into public form and connects it to the will of the whole community, to higher order, and to structures of continuity. Here lies the reason why even a founding state needs upper-level approval mechanisms.
7. Implications for the Present
This point applies directly to founders, top executives, and turnaround leaders in modern organizations. In the founding phase or in a crisis, strong decision-making power, execution ability, and leadership from the top are necessary. But that alone does not make an organization stable. If the judgment of the top is not complemented by meeting bodies, institutions, audits, role division, and approval channels, then that rule tends to remain the management of a strong individual and finds it difficult to gain continuity and succession.
In terms of OS Organizational Design Theory, it is a different question whether the top leader is highly capable and whether the organization as a whole operates in a healthy way. What truly matters is whether there is a structure that connects the top leader’s power to A, IA, H, and V of the whole organization, and to T in the execution environment. Even in modern organizations, a strong founder alone is not enough to sustain the organization. Only when upper-level approval mechanisms, corrective devices, and succession devices exist does the founder’s power become the power of the organization.
8. Conclusion
Even a founding state needs not only the power of the king, but also upper-level approval mechanisms that complement it, because the king’s power may become the starting point for launching order, but by itself it cannot sufficiently produce public legitimacy, communal approval, continuity, and succession.
What Livy Book 1 shows is that the kingship of Romulus was not merely the rule of a strong individual. It was complemented by devices such as ritual, approval, and the senate, and through them it was translated into public order.
Therefore, what a founding state needs is not only a strong king.
It needs upper-level approval mechanisms that can transform that strength into the will of the community, higher order, and a structure of continuity.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.10