A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why did Romulus think he could integrate rough people through a legal order and symbols of authority?
2. Abstract
Romulus thought he could integrate rough people through a legal order and symbols of authority because the people gathered in the community just after the founding were not yet a unified people in bloodline, custom, norm, or loyalty. They were only a mixed collection of persons gathered into the asylum. Left as they were, they could become a crowd, but not a true community. What was needed, therefore, was first to make visible who gives orders, then to define clearly what people must obey, and then to connect the two so that rough people could be placed under a public order.
Livy Book 1 shows is that Romulus did not merely gather people. He tried to transform a mixed human collection into a governable community by combining sacred rites, a legal order, and symbols of authority. The legal order fixed standards of behavior. Symbols of authority made the source of command visible. Sacred rites then served as the higher source of legitimacy that made both acceptable as an order justified before divine will. Therefore, Romulus’ design of rule was not a form of government that waited for moral maturity. It was a founding design that first brought immature people into order through external forms.
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 the asylum, sacred rites, the legal order, symbols of authority, and assemblies of the people. In Layer 2, it connects those facts to structures such as the founding phase, kingship, urban community and civic integration, and assembly and civic recognition.
This study also refers to OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.05 and rereads the policy of Romulus not as a simple piece of political common sense, but as a design that prepared the startup conditions of a state OS. In particular, it examines how the legal order strengthened IA, how symbols of authority clarified role and access classification, and how sacred rites reinforced trust T while transforming rough people into a community.
4. Layer 1: Fact
Layer 1 shows that Romulus, after gathering people, did not leave them as they were. He immediately moved toward order through sacred rites, a legal order, and symbols of authority. In Chapter 8, Romulus first performed sacred rites in due form and then gathered the people and established a legal order. He also believed that nothing except law could unite the people into one body, and that if he could gather respect to himself through symbols of authority, even rough men would obey the laws. This shows that law, authority, and sacred rite were conceived together as one package.
The important point here is that Romulus did not see the people as “already mature citizens,” but as “rough people.” That is, he did not assume that they would voluntarily keep order out of inner virtue or civic awareness. On the contrary, he assumed that a mixed population, different in origin and custom, would easily fall into private judgment and private conflict and would not become a community by itself. That is why it was necessary to define from outside who the commanding subject was and what the common norm of the community was.
This fact shows that Romulus used the legal order not simply as a system of punishments, but as a form that defined the inside of the community. The symbols of authority, moreover, were placed as devices that let people grasp the location of command at a sensory level. In other words, what Romulus arranged was not only the content of law, but also the visible form of rule that would give law actual force.
5. Layer 2: Order
The founding phase in Layer 2 defines its role as “fulfilling the minimum conditions for the existence of a community.” In this phase, it is not enough simply to secure population. The gathered people must be reorganized into a community. The structure of urban community and civic integration also has the role of realizing population growth, military growth, and expansion of the sphere of rule through communal reorganization. Thus, the core of the founding phase is not increasing people as such, but moving mixed human beings under one common order.
Kingship in Layer 2 has the role of “carrying out the creation, expansion, and maintenance of order in the state by the shortest route.” This means that kingship in the founding phase was not just administrative adjustment. It was a device for unifying the center of command. Symbols of authority made that kingship visible in a visual and symbolic way and let people understand, even before language, who the command subject was. The legal order, by contrast, defined what must be obeyed. The two were complementary. Symbols alone would remain intimidation. Law alone would be weak in effectiveness. Romulus used both because each needed the other.
The structure of assembly and civic recognition has the role of “turning obedience from mere subjection into self-involvement.” Seen from this angle, the legal order and symbols of authority were not merely instruments of suppression. They were also instruments of entry that brought people into the form of the community. When people obey the law, this does not mean only that they yield to fear. At least outwardly, it means that they place themselves inside public order.
From the perspective of OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.05, this problem can be understood as a startup condition of OS health. Rough people just after foundation had not yet been fully incorporated into IA, nor had they been role-structured under H. The legal order fixed what counted as correct command, action, and norm inside the community and established the basis of IA. The symbols of authority clarified the source of command and information and gave people a form in which to obey that norm. This was also a precondition for H, because a personnel and reward-punishment system cannot work unless the commanding subject and the standards of action are clear. By placing sacred rites first, Romulus tried to order IA while compensating for the lack of civic maturity M through trust T directed toward divine will.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Therefore, Romulus thought he could integrate rough people through a legal order and symbols of authority not because he optimistically believed that rough people could be elevated at once by virtue. On the contrary, because he understood that they were immature and likely to flow into private judgment and violence, he believed it was necessary first to impose from outside the forms of law and authority and to place them inside those forms.
The legal order defined what to obey. Symbols of authority made visible whom to obey. When these two were joined, mixed people could for the first time be transformed into a community governable under public order. The prior placement of sacred rites also prepared the condition under which this law and authority would be accepted not as mere human command, but as something supported by a higher order. In other words, Romulus understood law, authority, and sacred rite not as separate things, but as one integrated device for reorganizing immature people into a community.
In the language of OS Organizational Design Theory, this is the core of starting up a state OS. In the founding phase, the preconditions of IA and H must first be established, and order must be activated even under low M and T. Romulus’ judgment was a realistic answer to exactly that problem. The integration of rough people does not begin by waiting for inner maturity. It begins by bringing them into order through external form.
7. Implications for the Present
This point has strong implications for the startup phase and the reorganization phase of modern organizations. When newly gathered personnel, or divisions with different cultures, are integrated, it often fails if one expects high autonomy and shared understanding from the beginning. The reason is that people have not yet become a community moving under the same norms and command structure.
What is necessary in modern organizations as well is first to make clear who decides and what must be obeyed. This appears in organizational rules, evaluation systems, role definitions, meeting bodies, authority design, titles as symbols, and institutional authority. High autonomy and spontaneity are important, but they are measures that should be pursued again only after a minimum public form has been established.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, if civic maturity M is originally high, order can function without strong dependence on coercive law and fine-grained rules. But in a startup phase or in a mixed organization, that condition often does not exist. Therefore, order must first be activated by external forms, and only afterward should M and T be raised through education and accumulated experience so that the organization can shift toward spontaneous order. Romulus’ governing design shows the importance of this sequence in a classical form.
8. Conclusion
Romulus believed law and symbols of authority could integrate rough people because the early population of Rome was not yet a unified citizen body, but a mixed mass with different customs, loyalties, and origins. To transform such people into a community, it was necessary to make visible who commands and to define clearly what must be obeyed.
Livy Book 1 shows that Romulus used sacred rites, law, and symbols of authority together to bring rough people into public order. His rule was not based on idealism about human virtue, but on the realism of a founder who understood that form must come before maturity.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwatani, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.05