A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why can the strong kingship needed in the founding phase turn into danger in the mature phase?
2. Abstract
The strong kingship needed in the founding phase can turn into danger in the mature phase because, in an early community, the minimum conditions of population, command, legitimacy, and institutions are not yet in place, so the concentration of control variables in kingship works effectively for the formation of the community. But once the community expands and institutionalization progresses, that same concentration begins to obstruct continuity of rule, capacity for correction, and plurality of approval, and can even destroy the institutional order that has already been built.
In other words, strong kingship is a device that launches order in the founding phase. But in the phase of institutional maturity, the same concentrated rule that once worked can instead become a trigger for institutional destruction.
What Livy Book 1 shows is that in early Rome, kingship was necessary as the fastest device for founding the state and forming order, yet the more the community became institutionalized, the more the same exclusive kingship could fall into conflict with institutions and expose the whole community to danger. The value of strong kingship is not fixed. Its rationality and its danger change with the stage of development of the community.
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, sacred rites, legal order, the senate, kingship, public assembly, and war-declaration rituals. In Layer 2, it connects these facts to structures such as the founding phase, the phase of integrated expansion, the phase of institutional maturity, kingship, the senate, and public approval and civic recognition.
It also refers to OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.07 and reinterprets the concentration of kingship as exclusive access to the central control variables of the OS. On that basis, it examines why concentrated rule, which was rational in the founding phase, reverses in the mature phase into the dangers of uncorrectable monopoly, hollow approval, failed succession, and privatization of power, through the concepts of access classification, control variables, OS succession design, and user maturity M.
4. Layer 1: Fact
What Layer 1 confirms is that in Book 1, kingship is placed at the center of community formation in the early founding stage, yet that rule is not left as mere private superiority.
From Chapters 6 to 8, after becoming ruler of the new city, Romulus moves at once into city founding, sacred rites, legal arrangement, insignia of authority, and the establishment of the senate. Here kingship functions not merely as the position of a victor, but as the center that launches the community. In the immediate post-founding stage, it is necessary to fix quickly who decides, who commands, and who establishes order. In that sense, strong kingship is rational.
The war-declaration ritual in Chapter 24 also shows that even the use of violence must be institutionalized as a formal act of the community. This too shows that what was needed in the founding phase was not mere force, but a center that could translate force into public order.
At the same time, Book 1 as a whole shows that the actions of Romulus do not move in the direction of simply continuing personal rule. They move toward the arrangement of law, ritual, the senate, and mechanisms of approval. This suggests that as the community matures, kingship must not preserve concentration for its own sake, but must be translated into institutions.
5. Layer 2: Order
In Layer 2, the founding phase is defined by the role of “fulfilling the minimum conditions for the existence of a community.” At this stage, under the conditions of crisis, migration, founder, and followers, the aim is the establishment of the city and the first formation of institutions. Therefore, it is necessary to fix quickly who decides, who commands, and who stands at the center of the community. Here kingship is strongly needed as the ruling center that carries out the founding, expansion, and maintenance of order in the shortest path. In the founding phase, strong kingship is a rational device that prevents delay and division and turns disorder into order.
But once the community grows, the situation changes. In the phase of integrated expansion, surrounding communities must be absorbed through conquest, alliance, and citizenship, and the outside must be continually transformed into the inside. At this stage, it is no longer enough for a strong king simply to issue commands. What matters is whether conquered lands are incorporated into institutions, military structures, names, and obligations. If conquest advances while integration lags behind, then separate chains of command and obedience based on fear remain, and order does not become sustainable. If kingship continues in the same exclusive form as in the founding phase, obedience to the king as an individual grows larger while institutionalization stalls.
This becomes even clearer in the phase of institutional maturity. Layer 2 defines this phase as the moment when the founder’s personal power is replaced by reproducible institutions such as census, class order, centuries, and assemblies. As the community grows larger, it can no longer be governed unless burdens, order of participation, and means of correction are made visible as institutions. If kingship is still operated in the same exclusive form as in the founding phase, then the burden-sharing, participation order, and corrective procedures needed for rule are absorbed back into the personal judgment of the king, and institutional maturity is blocked. As a result, the community falls back into a condition in which “things work because the king is strong,” and the whole order becomes unstable once the king departs or fails.
The structure of kingship itself makes this reversal explicit. Kingship is strongly needed in the founding phase, but in the mature phase compatibility with institutions becomes more important. Its failures and risks include usurpation, rule driven by private anger, rule by fear, neglect of procedure, and the escalation of dynastic conflict, eventually even the abolition of kingship. The key point is not that kingship itself is evil. Rather, the monopoly, speed, and personal concentration that were rational in the founding phase become dangerous if left unchanged in the mature phase. In the founding phase, monopoly is a condition of establishment. In the mature phase, excessive monopoly becomes a condition of breakdown.
The senate is also a crucial corrective device in this transition. In the founding phase it functions as an aid to the king and a mechanism of approval, but in a vacancy of kingship it becomes the ruling center itself. Its value lies in preventing rupture of kingship and preserving continuity of rule. This means that as the community matures, kingship must not bear everything alone. It must be connected to an upper decision-making body such as the senate and receive approval and correction. The danger of the mature phase lies not in kingship being strong, but in dragging the founding-phase form of monopoly forward while refusing corrective devices.
A similar point applies to public approval and civic recognition. This structure turns rule into the will of the community. But if approval is distorted by bribery, fear, or performance, formal approval may remain while substantive legitimacy collapses. In the founding phase, the strength of kingship may help activate the mechanism of approval. But if in the mature phase kingship becomes too strong and turns approval into staged display, the community no longer receives approval as participation. It sees it as the mask of rule by fear. The real danger in the mature phase is not that strong kingship makes approval unnecessary, but that it hollows approval out.
From the viewpoint of OS Organizational Design Theory R1.30.07, this problem becomes even clearer as one of access classification and control variables. In the founding phase, monopoly by kingship is rational because A, IA, H, and V must be activated quickly. “Exclusive” access has the function of speeding decisions and making responsibility clear. But excessive exclusivity creates arbitrary rule, blurred responsibility, vacant authority, and violence that cannot be stopped. Likewise, one failure condition of control variables is that it becomes unclear who handles which variable, or that variables are concentrated in unqualified hands. Thus, the concentration of central variables that was rational in the founding phase can turn in the mature phase into an excessive concentration that cannot be corrected.
The viewpoint of OS succession design and control-variable operating capability shows the danger of strong kingship in the mature phase most clearly. When a user carrying an important role is replaced, role, scope of responsibility, control variables, and access classification must be safely transferred to the successor. But if the founding-phase pattern of concentration is preserved unchanged, the danger rises that the title alone will be inherited while control-variable operating capability and civic maturity M remain insufficient. In that case, succession is completed on paper, but real function is lost, and a chain deterioration of A, IA, H, and V becomes likely.
The concept of user maturity M is also important. In the founding phase, if the king has high M, strong exclusive kingship can work effectively for order formation. But in the mature phase, if the king or successor lacks M and monopoly is still preserved, then privatization of authority, failure of role performance, misoperation of control variables, decline of V, and decline of trust become more likely. The real danger is not strong kingship itself. It is the attempt to preserve monopoly in the mature phase while overestimating both the ruler’s personal maturity and the corrective capacity of institutions.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Therefore, the reason why the strong kingship needed in the founding phase can turn into danger in the mature phase is that the concentration of central variables and speed of decision that were needed to turn disorder into order in the founding phase reverse, as the community expands and institutionalization advances, into the dangers of uncorrectable monopoly, hollow approval, failed succession, and privatization of power.
In the founding phase, it is necessary to fix at once who decides, who commands, and who stands at the center of the community. In that sense, strong kingship is rational. But the mature phase is already a condition in which institutionalization has advanced and the founder’s personal power has begun to be replaced by reproducible institutions. If one tries to reintroduce founding-phase strong kingship at that stage, this does not mean adding further strength on top of institutions. It means absorbing institutions themselves back into the personal judgment of the ruler and eroding the institutional order already built.
Thus, strong kingship is necessary in the startup phase. But in the mature phase, once it should have been translated into institutions and reorganized into structures of approval, correction, and succession, the continued maintenance of founding-phase concentrated rule changes it from a power that supports the community into a power that pressures the community and destroys institutions.
7. Implications for the Present
This point applies directly to founder-led management, turnaround leadership, and strong CEO systems in modern organizations. In the startup phase or a crisis, concentration and speed of decision-making are necessary. Unless it is made clear who decides and unless authority is concentrated, the organization cannot be launched and crises cannot be overcome.
However, once the organization expands and departments, rules, evaluation systems, approval channels, audits, and meeting bodies are already in place, the attempt to preserve founder-style exclusive concentration can instead hollow institutions out. Executive meetings become staged approval. Systems become mere devices that ratify top management decisions. Successors inherit titles without inheriting real capability. The organization becomes fragile when the top leader is absent.
In terms of OS Organizational Design Theory, this is a phase mismatch: access classification and control-variable concentration appropriate to the founding phase are applied unchanged to the mature phase. The monopoly that works in the founding phase must be reorganized in the mature phase into distribution, correction, and succession. Otherwise, the strong founder can become not only the person who built the organization, but also the person who obstructs its institutional maturity.
8. Conclusion
The strong kingship needed in the founding phase can turn into danger in the mature phase because the concentration of central variables and speed of decision that were needed for the formation of the community in the founding phase reverse, with the expansion of the community and the progress of institutionalization, into the dangers of uncorrectable monopoly, hollow approval, failed succession, and privatization of power.
What Livy Book 1 shows is that kingship was rational in the earliest stage of state formation, but that its rationality does not remain unchanged as the community develops.
So the issue is not whether kingship is strong or weak.
The issue is whether that strength has been translated, corrected, and made inheritable in a form appropriate to the stage of development of the community.
When this is misunderstood, the power of the founding phase turns into a destructive factor in the mature phase.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.07