A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why does the selection of a king require a dual structure of popular approval and senatorial approval?
2. Abstract
The selection of a king requires a dual structure of popular approval and senatorial approval because Roman kingship could not secure stable legitimacy through bloodline alone.
The royal line of Alba Longa had elements of hereditary succession. However, Roman kingship did not emerge as a simple hereditary monarchy. Romulus was a founder. His kingship was established not only by bloodline, but also by divine will, military power, the act of founding the city, popular approval, and institutional design.
After the death of Romulus, there was no royal house that could automatically inherit the throne. A vacancy in kingship appeared, and Rome had to pass through an interregnum before choosing the next king.
In Livy, History of Rome, Book 1, the people choose the king, but the decision is validated only after the approval of the Senate. This shows that Roman kingship was not established by bloodline alone. It was established through two channels of approval: the people and the Senate.
Popular approval transforms kingship into the will of the community. Senatorial approval connects kingship to the continuity structure of the state, that is, the institutional structure that keeps the state functioning across royal vacancies and succession crises. When these two forms of approval overlap, the king becomes not merely a strong man, not merely a popular figure, and not merely an agent of the aristocratic class. He becomes the public governing center of the state OS.
3. Method
This study follows the structure of Three-Layer Analysis, or TLA.
In Layer 1, this study organizes the facts related to the interregnum after the death of Romulus, the selection of the king by the people, the approval of the Senate, the selection of Numa, and the instability of royal succession.
In Layer 2, these facts are connected to structures such as kingship, the Senate, popular approval and civic recognition, royal succession, the state OS, role design, access modes, and OS succession design.
In Layer 3, this study explains why Roman kingship needed a dual approval structure of popular approval and senatorial approval because it could not secure legitimacy through bloodline alone.
4. Layer 1: Fact
In Livy, History of Rome, Book 1, Roman kingship is not described as simple hereditary succession.
Before the founding of Rome, Alba Longa had the royal line of the Silvii. However, even this royal line was not maintained only by stable succession. Numitor was supposed to inherit kingship from his father Proca. Yet his younger brother Amulius seized the throne from him. This shows that even when bloodline legitimacy exists, kingship can still be distorted by force and usurpation.
The story of Romulus and Remus also shows that kingship is not automatically determined by bloodline. The two brothers were connected to royal blood. However, the question of who should rule the new city was not settled by birth order. Because they were twins, seniority could not decide the issue. Therefore, they turned to augury and asked the gods to decide. This shows that Roman kingship needed to be legitimized not only by bloodline, but also by divine will, force, founding action, and communal recognition.
After the death of Romulus, there was no royal house that naturally inherited the throne. The state was placed in a condition without a commanding authority. The Fathers, that is, the upper figures who formed the Senate, operated the interregnum. After that, a structure was established in which the people chose the king and the Senate approved the choice.
From these facts, it becomes clear that the Roman throne was not inherited automatically by bloodline. Kingship became the public center of the state only through selection by the people and approval by the Senate.
5. Layer 2: Order
In Layer 2, kingship is understood as the governing center that carries founding, war, institutional creation, and judgment in one role. Kingship is not merely hereditary. It is supported by military achievement, divine will, popular approval, senatorial approval, marriage networks, and crisis response. The key judgment criterion is whether force, ritual, approval, and institutional design are integrated.
From this structure, Roman kingship cannot be understood as a kingship completed by bloodline alone. A king becomes the governing center only when military ability, connection to divine will, approval by the community, approval by the Senate, and institutional design are combined.
The Senate is a higher-level decision-making body that strengthens kingship while also carrying its legitimation and continuity. In the founding phase, the Senate functions as an aid to the king and as an approval device. When the throne is vacant, it becomes the ruling center itself. The Senate is connected to the approval of royal selection, the interregnum, the assembly, clan order, the aristocratic class, and decisions on diplomacy and war.
Therefore, senatorial approval is not approval for the sake of obeying the king. It is a higher-level approval that connects kingship to the continuity structure of the state. When a vacancy in kingship occurs, the state OS must not stop. In order to transfer rule to the next kingship, there must be a structure of continuity outside the king himself. That structure is the Senate.
On the other hand, popular approval and civic recognition function as an approval device that transforms rule into the will of the community. A royal office or public office gains public form not only through force or bloodline, but also through the approval of the people. Its purpose is to transform obedience from mere subjection into self-involvement.
Here lies the functional difference between popular approval and senatorial approval. Popular approval establishes kingship as the will of the community. Senatorial approval establishes kingship as part of the continuity structure of the state.
Without popular approval, kingship tends to become rule separated from the community. Without senatorial approval, kingship tends to depend on temporary popularity, military power, or personal ability. Then, when the king dies, fails, is absent, or is usurped, the governing center of the state becomes unstable.
From the viewpoint of OS Organizational Design Theory, the selection of a king is the determination of the most critical User in the state OS. Role design assigns a Responsibility Area, Control Variables, and Access Modes. In a monarchical OS, Strategic Awareness, Information Flow Architecture, Human Resource Governance, and Decision-Criteria Validity tend to concentrate in the monarch. This enables rapid governing judgment, but it also creates the risk that distorted awareness, blocked information, misused personnel, and distorted judgment criteria cannot be corrected.
OS succession design is the design that safely transfers a Role, Responsibility Area, Control Variables, and Access Modes to the next user when a critical role changes. The selection of a king is exactly this problem of OS succession design.
Therefore, approval in the selection of a king is not merely a popular vote, nor merely aristocratic consent. It is a connection procedure that decides who will receive the central Control Variables of the state OS. Popular approval is a trust connection on the Execution Layer side. Senatorial approval is a continuity, correction, and oversight connection on the OS side.
6. Layer 3: Insight
The selection of a king requires a dual structure of popular approval and senatorial approval because Roman kingship was not a kingship that could secure stable legitimacy through bloodline alone.
If there is automatic hereditary succession, there is at least a formal answer to the question, “Who is the next king?” However, in Rome, kingship was not merely a family inheritance. It was a public role that had to be approved by the community and by the Senate. Therefore, a king was not king simply because of bloodline. He became king because he was accepted by the people and connected to the state OS by the Senate.
This dual approval structure compensated for a weakness in the Roman OS. At the same time, it also strengthened the Roman OS. When there is no automatic hereditary succession, kingship is always exposed to the question, “Why is this person the king?” If bloodline cannot answer that question, another device of legitimation is needed. One such device is popular approval. The other is senatorial approval.
Popular approval is the device that transforms kingship into the will of the community. No matter how capable a king may be, if the people do not accept his rule as the will of the community, his commands do not become the commands of the community. The king must not be a person who rules the community from the outside by force. He must be accepted by the community as its own governing center.
Therefore, without popular approval, kingship easily becomes rule separated from the will of the community. In that case, the king’s commands are not received by citizens as “our order,” but as commands imposed from above. This weakens the connection between the state OS and the Execution Layer. In terms of OS Organizational Design Theory, popular approval forms a trust connection on the Execution Layer side.
However, popular approval alone cannot stabilize kingship. Popular approval gives the public form that “this king is accepted by the community.” But it does not guarantee that the king can carry the continuity of the state, or that kingship can survive a vacancy or succession crisis. For this, senatorial approval is necessary.
Senatorial approval is the device that connects kingship to the continuity structure of the state. The Senate is a higher-level decision-making body that strengthens kingship and carries its legitimation and continuity. When the king is absent, the Senate can temporarily carry the affairs of the state. However, the difference between kingship and the Senate lies in the speed of decision-making. A king can make judgments alone, so rapid decisions are easier in a crisis. The Senate, by contrast, is a collective body. It is strong in maintaining continuity, but it has limits in rapid judgment.
Therefore, the Senate does not make kingship unnecessary. The Senate exists to support kingship, approve kingship, and connect kingship to the continuity structure of the state. For this reason, the Senate had to approve a person whom it could support and whom it recognized as capable of carrying the continuity of the state OS. This is the essence of senatorial approval.
Because this dual structure exists, the king does not become merely a strong man, merely a popular figure, or merely an agent of the upper class. If there is only popular approval, kingship can be swept away by popularity or enthusiasm. If there is only senatorial approval, kingship can be confined within the interests of the Senate and aristocratic groups. When both approvals overlap, kingship is connected both to the will of the community and to the continuity structure of the state.
If this structure breaks down, kingship fails in two directions. If popular approval is weak, kingship looks like an appointment from above or an imposed bloodline. In that case, trust in the Execution Layer declines, and rule depends more on fear or military power. If senatorial approval is weak, a king supported by popularity or military success may become autocratic or privatized without institutional correction.
Therefore, the selection of a king requires a dual structure of popular approval and senatorial approval. Roman kingship was not a kingship that automatically gained legitimacy through bloodline. It had to be approved by the people as the will of the community and connected by the Senate to the continuity structure of the state. Through this dual approval, the king could finally function as the public governing center of the state OS.
7. Implications for the Present
This structure can also be applied to the selection of leaders in modern organizations.
In a modern company, a top leader does not function by title alone. Even if a CEO or representative is formally appointed, that leader cannot fully function as the center of the organizational OS without trust from employees, shareholders, the board of directors, senior executives, customers, and the market.
What corresponds to popular approval in a modern organization is trust from employees, the front line, customers, the market, and shareholders. Without this trust, the leader’s commands remain formal commands. They do not easily become understanding, acceptance, or execution on the front line. The organization may appear to be moving, but the trust connection with the Execution Layer becomes weak, and policies do not penetrate deeply.
What corresponds to senatorial approval is approval by the board of directors, nomination committee, senior executives, audit functions, and governance structures. This connects the top leader to the continuity structure of the organization. If a leader is selected only because of popularity, past results, closeness to the founder, or short-term achievements, the organization may move in the short term, but it can lose the structures of correction, oversight, and succession.
Therefore, modern organizations also require a dual approval structure in leadership selection. First, the leader must be accepted by the Execution Layer. Second, the leader must be confirmed by higher-level governance structures in terms of continuity and correction. When these two forms of approval overlap, the leader becomes not merely an appointed person, but the public governing center of the organizational OS.
This is especially important in founder succession, second-generation management, interim CEO systems, business succession, and organizational reconstruction. Bloodline, title, popularity, or past achievement alone cannot stabilize an organizational OS. For a leader to function properly, both trust from the Execution Layer and continuity approval by higher-level governance are necessary.
8. Conclusion
The selection of a king requires a dual structure of popular approval and senatorial approval because Roman kingship was not a kingship that could secure stable legitimacy through bloodline alone.
A Roman king did not automatically become king through bloodline. He became king only when he was accepted by the people as the will of the community and connected by the Senate to the continuity structure of the state.
Popular approval transforms kingship into the will of the community. Senatorial approval connects kingship to the continuity structure of the state. Without the former, kingship separates from the community. Without the latter, kingship depends on temporary popularity, military power, or personal ability, and the state OS becomes unstable when there is a vacancy or usurpation.
Therefore, the dual approval structure in Roman kingship is not merely a double-check procedure. It is a governance design that compensates for the lack of bloodline legitimacy and connects kingship to both communal will and state continuity.
Through this structure, the king becomes not merely a strong man, not merely a popular figure, and not merely an agent of the aristocratic class. He becomes the public governing center of the state OS.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.14