A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 6
1. Question
Why did plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites become a step toward the consulship?
This question is important for understanding the final stage of the Licinio Sextian reforms in Livy’s Book 6.
From a modern viewpoint, the Ten Men for Sacred Rites and the consulship may look like different offices.
The Ten Men for Sacred Rites seem to be a religious office.
The consulship seems to be the highest political, military, and administrative office.
However, in the Roman Republic, religion and politics are not separate.
The legitimacy of the highest office is supported not only by administrative ability or military ability.
It is also supported by divine approval, sacred rites, auspices, and religious legitimacy.
Therefore, plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites is not a small religious concession.
It means that plebeians begin to connect to the legitimacy layer of the Republican OS.
If plebeians can handle sacred public duties, they can handle the sacred order of the state.
If they can handle the sacred order of the state, it becomes harder to say that plebeians are religiously unfit for the consulship.
Therefore, plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites becomes an important step toward the plebeian consul.
2. Abstract
This research case study reads why plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites became a step toward the consulship in Livy’s Book 6 through Three-Layer Analysis, or TLA, and OS Organizational Design Theory, or OSODT.
In Chapters 40 to 42 of Book 6, Rome moves toward choosing half of the Ten Men for Sacred Rites from the plebeians.
After this, the road toward the plebeian consul is opened.
This is not merely a small concession in a religious office.
In the Roman office system, religious legitimacy and political legitimacy are deeply connected.
The patricians could long use the following logic.
Plebeians are not qualified to handle sacred authority.
Those who cannot connect to auspices and sacred rites cannot hold the highest office of the state.
Therefore, when plebeians enter the Ten Men for Sacred Rites, they connect to the religious legitimacy layer.
This weakens the fundamental argument against plebeian entry into the consulship.
In OSODT terms, plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites opens the authentication layer of the Republican OS.
Through this, plebeians begin to be recognized not merely as users in the assembly, but as regular actors who can handle divine will, sacred rites, and legitimacy.
That is why entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites becomes a step toward the consulship.
3. Research Method
This study uses TLA, or Three-Layer Analysis.
TLA reads a text through three layers.
Layer 1: Fact
Layer 1 organizes what happened in Livy’s Book 6.
It focuses on the demand for the plebeian consul, the Ten Men for Sacred Rites, the opening of religious office, patrician objections, and the final compromise.
Layer 2: Order
Layer 2 extracts the order behind the events.
It focuses on religious legitimacy, political legitimacy, the authentication layer, the administrator authority layer, and the legitimizing structure of patrician rule.
Layer 3: Insight
Layer 3 draws structural insight from Layer 1 and Layer 2.
It uses OSODT to explain why plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites opened the road toward the plebeian consul.
This article mainly uses the following OSODT concepts.
- Republican OS
- Plebeian OS
- Legitimacy layer
- Authentication layer
- Religious legitimacy
- Political legitimacy
- Administrator authority
- Highest office
- Plebeian consul
- Ten Men for Sacred Rites
- Institutional operation
- Redistribution of authority
4. Layer 1: Fact
In Livy’s Book 6, the road toward the plebeian consul is connected with the opening of religious office.
In Chapter 35, Licinius and Sextius present three bills concerning debt, land, and public office.
The public office bill demands that consular tribunes should not be elected, and that one of the consuls should be chosen from the plebeians.
Here, the plebeian side does not demand only economic relief.
It also demands connection to the highest office.
However, connection to the highest office involves not only administrative, military, and assembly issues.
It also involves religious legitimacy.
For this reason, the later opening of the Ten Men for Sacred Rites becomes important.
In Chapter 37, the plebeian consul is required as a guardian of liberty.
Licinius and Sextius argue that unless one consul is chosen from the plebeians, the fathers will not stop occupying land and will not stop ruining plebeians through excessive profit.
Here, the plebeian consul is not a simple honor.
It is positioned as the highest office needed to protect plebeian freedom.
However, from the patrician viewpoint, the consulship is not merely a political office.
It is also connected to confirmation of divine will and the order of sacred rites.
Therefore, without opening religious office, recognition of the plebeian consul is difficult for the patrician side.
In Chapters 40 to 41, plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites begins.
Rome moves toward choosing half of the Ten Men for Sacred Rites from the plebeians.
The patrician Appius shows strong concern about plebeians connecting to religious authority.
This scene shows that the opening of religious office is not a marginal reform.
The patricians are alarmed because religious office is connected to political legitimacy.
If the power to handle sacred rites, divine will, auspices, and religious approval is opened to plebeians, the argument that plebeians are unfit for sacred public office becomes weaker.
In Chapter 42, after plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites, the road toward the plebeian consul opens.
Licinius and Sextius are re elected for the tenth time.
The law by which half of the Ten Men for Sacred Rites are chosen from the plebeians is passed.
After this, the path toward the plebeian consul opens.
This order is important.
First, part of the religious legitimacy layer is opened.
After that, entry into the highest office becomes possible.
In other words, entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites functions as a preparatory step toward the plebeian consul.
In Chapter 42, the road toward the plebeian consul opens while the praetorship is created for the patricians.
This shows that the final compromise is a redistribution of authority including religious office, the highest office, and judicial office.
The partial opening of religious office prepares the ground for opening the highest office.
At the same time, it leads to a compromise design in which the patricians keep another area of authority.
5. Layer 2: Order
Plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites becomes a step toward the consulship because religious office belongs to the legitimacy layer of the Republican OS.
First, religious office is a legitimacy layer.
From the viewpoint of OSODT, the Ten Men for Sacred Rites are not merely religious officials.
They belong to the legitimacy layer of the Republican OS.
In Rome, the legitimacy of political judgment and public office is connected to divine will, sacred rites, auspices, the calendar, and religious procedure.
Therefore, the question of who can hold religious office is also the question of who can legitimately operate the state.
When plebeians enter religious office, they connect to the legitimacy layer.
Second, patrician rule is supported not only by public office, but also by religious authentication.
Patrician rule is not built only on control of the consulship or the Senate.
It is also supported by religious authentication.
The patricians can use the following logic.
The sacred rites of the state are held by patricians.
Confirmation of divine will belongs to patrician authority.
The highest office requires religious legitimacy.
Plebeians do not have that legitimacy.
As long as this logic remains, the plebeian consul may be attacked as legally possible but religiously unfit.
That is why entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites is necessary.
Third, entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites means public authentication of the plebeians.
When plebeians enter the Ten Men for Sacred Rites, they are no longer recognized only as representatives of the plebeian order.
They are recognized as public actors who can handle the sacred order of the state.
This has a large meaning.
Plebeians can perform sacred rites.
Plebeians can connect to divine will and state order.
Plebeians can become legitimate operators of public office.
Plebeians can handle an upper layer of the state.
With this authentication, the objection to the plebeian consul becomes weaker.
Fourth, opening religious office is a precondition for opening the consulship.
The consulship is the highest office in military, administrative, and political terms.
However, in Rome, the highest office cannot be separated from religious procedure.
Therefore, for a plebeian to become consul, it is necessary to show that plebeians are not religiously unfit.
Entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites serves as that proof.
In this sense, opening religious office is a precondition for legitimizing the plebeian consul.
Fifth, when the legitimacy layer opens, the administrator authority layer also opens.
In OSODT terms, administrator authority in a state OS is not established by command power alone.
The command must be authenticated as legitimate.
In Rome, religious office is part of this authentication.
Therefore, if the legitimacy layer remains monopolized by patricians, the administrator authority layer, namely the consulship, also remains closed to plebeians.
But when part of the legitimacy layer opens, the administrator authority layer becomes easier to open.
Plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites opens this connection.
6. Layer 3: Insight
From a modern viewpoint, religious office and the consulship may look separate.
But in Rome, they are not separate.
Roman politics is not separated from divine will.
A magistrate does not merely carry out administration.
He acts as public authority approved by the gods.
Therefore, someone who cannot connect to religious legitimacy can be seen as unfit for the highest office.
The patricians could use this logic to reject plebeian entry into the consulship.
That is why plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites is so important.
If plebeians can perform sacred rites, they can connect to the sacred order of the state.
If they can connect to the sacred order of the state, it becomes difficult to say that a plebeian consul is religiously unfit.
In other words, plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites lowers the religious barrier to the plebeian consul.
This reform is not merely the partial opening of a religious office.
It opens the authentication layer of the Republican OS.
Plebeians are no longer only citizen users who vote in assemblies.
They are authenticated as regular actors who can handle sacred rites and divine will.
As a result, they move closer to becoming legitimacy managers of the Republican OS.
They also gain a path to be recognized as candidates for the highest office.
This is the deeper meaning of the institutional reform in Book 6.
The path to the plebeian consul is not opened only by economic reform or public office reform.
It is also supported by opening the religious legitimacy layer.
7. Implications for the Present
This analysis also gives an important lesson for modern organizations.
In modern organizations, people may be excluded from upper positions for reasons that appear to concern ability or experience.
However, behind this, a deeper authentication layer may be closed.
For example, frontline members may not enter executive meetings.
Young employees may not enter strategy meetings.
Mid career employees may not enter core departments.
People from non mainstream departments may not enter decision making layers.
The stated reasons may be simple.
They do not yet have enough trust.
They do not know the culture.
They do not speak the language of management.
They did not pass through the traditional route.
This is not only a problem of job ability.
It is a problem of access to the organization’s legitimacy layer.
In such a case, simply giving a higher title is not enough.
The authentication layer must be opened first.
Partial participation in important meetings can help.
Formal appointment to official projects can help.
Direct connection with customers or external institutions can help.
Participation in trust related areas such as quality, safety, and audit can help.
Regular reporting routes to executives can help.
Participation in system design meetings can help.
These are similar to entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites in Rome.
To open the road to upper positions, the organization must first recognize that these people can handle important legitimacy functions.
In Rome, plebeians became able to handle sacred rites.
This meant that they were recognized as people who could handle the sacred order of the state.
In modern organizations, when non mainstream groups are allowed to participate in important trust areas, this can become a preparatory step toward upper management.
Reform is not only giving a position.
It is also giving institutional authentication for that position.
8. Conclusion
Plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites became a step toward the consulship because the legitimacy of the highest office in the Roman Republic was deeply connected with religious approval.
At first glance, the opening of the Ten Men for Sacred Rites may look like a small religious reform separate from the consulship.
However, in the Roman Republic, religion and politics are not separate.
Divine will, auspices, sacred rites, the calendar, and religious procedure support the legitimacy of public office.
Therefore, as long as religious office remains monopolized by patricians, there remains room to say that plebeians are not fit for the highest office.
Plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites breaks this barrier.
It means that plebeians can handle sacred public duties.
It means that plebeians can connect to the legitimacy layer of the state.
It means that plebeians are authenticated as public authorities.
That is why entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites becomes a step toward the plebeian consul.
The reform in Book 6 is not merely economic reform.
It is also not merely public office reform.
It is a multi layer redistribution of authority in the Republican OS, including debt, land, public office, and religious legitimacy.
The conclusion of this research case study is therefore as follows.
Plebeian entry into the Ten Men for Sacred Rites became a step toward the consulship because, in the Roman Republic, the legitimacy of the highest office was connected to religious approval.
By entering religious office, plebeians were authenticated as actors who could handle the sacred legitimacy layer of the state.
Through this, they began to move from simple citizen users to legitimacy managers of the Republican OS, and then toward candidates for the highest office.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome from its Foundation, Book 6.
Japanese edition: Titus Livius, History of Rome from its Foundation 3, translated by Mori Masashi, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.36.05.00.