A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why does the privatization of divine will cause the collapse of political trust before it destroys faith itself?
2. Abstract
The privatization of divine will causes political trust to collapse before it destroys faith because, in an ancient state, divine will was not merely an object of religion. It functioned as a higher frame of legitimacy that translated rule, war, law, ritual, and public recognition into a form that the community could accept as a just order.
Therefore, even if belief in the gods does not disappear at once, the moment people recognize that divine will is being used arbitrarily to fit the ruler’s private convenience, they stop accepting it as the public basis of order.
Livy Book 1 shows that, in Rome’s founding history, divine will was not mere mythic decoration. It worked as a political device that supported the selection of rulers, the formation of law, the beginning of war, and the acceptance of the community. Therefore, the privatization of divine will is not merely a matter of religious irreverence. It first makes the community feel that “this rule is not for us,” and in doing so, it breaks political trust from within.
3. Method
This study follows the three-layer structure of TLA.
In Layer 1, it organizes as facts the events in Book 1 of Livy related to foundation, kingship, augury, ritual, legal formation, and the ritual of declaring war. In Layer 2, it connects these facts to structures such as the Heavenly Layer, treaties and war-declaration ritual, diplomatic priests, priestly houses and recording systems, and the role of founder-kings and heroes.
This study also refers to OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.05 and rereads the privatization of divine will not simply as a deviation in belief, but as a breakdown in the control variables that support political trust. In particular, it examines how divine will affects IA, H, and T, and why political trust collapses first when divine will is privatized.
4. Layer 1: Fact
Layer 1 shows that, in Book 1, major political decisions are repeatedly presented through a connection to divine will.
In Chapter 6, Romulus and Remus do not try to decide the ruler of the new city simply by age or force. They attempt to decide it through augury. Here, the result of the struggle over rule is presented to the community not as a mere outcome of force, but as a decision judged in the light of divine will.
In Chapter 8, Romulus first performs sacred rites in due form and only afterward gathers the people and establishes a legal order. This suggests that the rationality of law alone was not enough. Unless law was presented as something connected to a higher order, it could not unify rough and heterogeneous people into one community.
In Chapter 24, the herald declares, “Hear, Jupiter,” and, “Hear, Justice,” and performs the demand for reparation and the declaration of war in ritual form. Here, the beginning of war becomes a communal act only after passing through a formal procedure witnessed by gods and justice.
These facts show that divine will, before being an object of faith, was an instrument that translated political decisions into a form the community could accept. That is why, when its use becomes arbitrary, what shakes first is not faith in general but acceptance of political decisions.
5. Layer 2: Order
In Layer 2, the Heavenly Layer defines divine signs, omens, and ritual order as a higher reference axis that legitimizes human acts of politics, war, and foundation, and connects communal action to cosmic order. Roman action is transformed from “mere force” into “right order” through augury, oath, sacrifice, divine reference, and sacred form. Therefore, divine will was not an external religious belief. It functioned as an approval device that translated rulership and war into a form the community could accept.
The failure conditions in this structure include neglect of ritual, deviation from procedure, and the privatization of divine will. The crucial point is that the problem of privatizing divine will appears not first as the destruction of doctrine, but as the collapse of the public form that legitimizes communal action. Once a ruler begins to use divine will as a tool for private desire, failure concealment, or personal convenience, divine will is no longer a higher reference axis for the whole community. It becomes an ornament for the ruler’s own purposes. At that point, people do not first deny the gods. They first begin to feel, “This decision is not for us.”
The structure of treaties, war-declaration ritual, and diplomatic priests also supports this reading. Divine reference allows war to appear not as a private fight but as a formal act of the community. If divine will is privatized, war is more easily understood as the ruler’s private war rather than a public act of order. In this sense, the privatization of divine will breaks the connection between the ruler’s command and the community’s interest before it weakens religious faith itself.
The structure of priests, priestly houses, and recording systems shows that divine will had to be preserved and transmitted as a public form, not as a private inspiration. To privatize divine will is to take away this public character. As a result, the community loses confidence not first in the gods themselves, but in the political form that claims legitimacy through them.
From the perspective of OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.05, this can be explained as a breakdown in roles and control variables. Roles related to divine will and ritual are connected at least to IA, H, and T. Divine will helps circulate the meaning of what is right, supports the meaning of honor and reward, and forms acceptance of decisions made by the ruling side. Once divine will is privatized, T collapses first, because the community feels that decisions no longer follow the gods but the ruler’s private convenience. Then IA becomes distorted, because information is no longer received as the transmission of higher order, but as material processed to justify the ruler. H is also damaged, because honor and reward begin to look arbitrary rather than public.
In other words, the privatization of divine will destroys the control variables of political trust before it destroys the world of belief.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Therefore, the reason why the privatization of divine will causes political trust to collapse before it destroys faith is that, in an ancient state, divine will functioned before all else as a governing device that turned rule into approval, violence into public order, and decisions into acts the community could accept.
A community does not need to deny the gods immediately in order to lose trust. Once people perceive that “divine will” is no longer a higher reference axis for the whole community, but a tool used to justify the convenience of the ruler. When that happens, the first response is not, “The gods do not exist.” It is, “This decision is not right,” and, “This rule is not for us.”
Thus, the privatization of divine will is an act that breaks the circuit of legitimization before it breaks belief. It may appear that the ruler is still using the gods, but what is actually lost first is the reason the community has for accepting the ruler’s commands.
7. Implications for the Present
Modern society does not use divine will itself as a governing technique. Yet structurally, a similar problem remains. Ideas such as founding spirit, institutional mission, historical legitimacy, public value, and organizational philosophy function as higher reference axes that justify decisions and make people feel, “This decision is for us.”
However, when these are used arbitrarily for the convenience of management or power-holders, what breaks first is not abstract belief in those ideals themselves, but trust in management decisions and institutional changes. People may not completely abandon the ideals, but they begin to feel, “Those words are no longer being used for us.” At that point, T declines, IA becomes distorted, and H is more likely to be perceived as arbitrary.
In the language of OS Organizational Design Theory, the privatization of a higher reference axis breaks T first and then damages IA and H. Even in modern organizations, when mission, values, or history are privatized, political trust collapses before the institution itself outwardly collapses. Rule then becomes unstable from within.
8. Conclusion
The privatization of divine will first destroys political trust because divine will functioned in the ancient state not merely as a religious object but as a higher reference axis that made rule, war, law, and public order acceptable to the community.
Livy Book 1 shows that divine will connected foundation, rule, war, and law to communal order. Therefore, its privatization was not just religious irreverence. It was an act that undermined the community’s acceptance of rule itself.
A community stops trusting its rulers before it stops believing in its gods. That is the deepest danger in the privatization of divine will.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwatani, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.05