A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 2
1. Question
Why does the old ruling class seek restoration through victim consciousness and legitimacy, instead of reflecting on its own tyranny?
In Livy’s History of Rome, Book 2, Rome expels the kings and begins to form the Republic. At the same time, the expelled royal side also tries to return to power.
The important point is that the old ruling class did not leave power after reflecting on its own tyranny.
For the Tarquin family and royalist groups, the fall of kingship was not understood as the natural result of tyranny. Rather, it was understood as an event in which their original right to rule, property, honor, and bloodline legitimacy were taken away.
This study uses OS Organizational Design Theory to explain why the old ruling class seeks restoration through victim consciousness and legitimacy, rather than through reflection.
2. Research Abstract
The old ruling class tends to see the fall of the old regime not as an OS failure, but as damage done to its own status, privilege, and legitimacy.
From the viewpoint of the new regime, the old regime is tyranny.
But from the viewpoint of the old ruling class, the old regime is the OS that supported its status, benefits, order, and legitimacy.
For this reason, the old ruling class does not first reflect on its tyranny. It acts to recover lost legitimacy, restore lost privileges, and rebuild the old order.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, this means that old OS users cannot correct their Validity of Decision Criteria, or V. They continue to hold the purpose of the old OS as a legitimate purpose.
Therefore, the restoration movement of the old ruling class is not only personal emotion. It is a self-preservation movement based on the legitimacy of the old OS.
3. Research Method
This study uses Three-Layer Analysis, or TLA, to analyze Livy’s Book 2.
Layer 1 is Fact. It organizes the events written in Livy’s text. In this case, the main facts are the conspiracy to restore kingship, the discovery of the conspiracy, the disposal of royal property, the wars between Tarquinius and outside powers, and the Battle of Lake Regillus.
Layer 2 is Order. It extracts the institutional structure behind these facts. The main structures are the old royal restoration network, young royalists and the privileged group that lost power, the disposal of royal property and irreversibility, and the blocking of royal names and royal bloodlines.
Layer 3 is Insight. It connects these structures to OS Organizational Design Theory. In this study, the restoration movement of the old ruling class is read as victim consciousness, legitimacy claim, desire to restore privilege, and connection through external APIs by old OS users.
4. Layer 1: Fact
In Livy’s Book 2, even after Rome expels the kings, the old royal side continues to try to restore power.
In the conspiracy to restore kingship, young men close to the royal house and envoys of the Tarquin family try to restore royal power from inside Republican Rome. They do not experience equality under law as freedom. They experience it as a loss of freedom.
The reason is clear. Under kingship, the old privileged group could receive favor, discretion, and special treatment from the king. From the viewpoint of the whole community, legal equality is the institutionalization of freedom. But from the viewpoint of the old privileged group, it is the loss of privileges that they once enjoyed.
The conspiracy is discovered through the report of a slave, and the traitors are punished. This shows that information connections with the old royal house were themselves routes of rebellion.
The king’s property is also not simply placed in the treasury. It is handed over to the people for plunder. From the viewpoint of the new regime, this is an irreversible measure that cuts off the possibility of reconnecting interests with the royal faction. But from the viewpoint of the old ruling class, it can be remembered as the theft of their property.
Tarquinius also connects with outside powers such as Veii and Tarquinii and tries to restore royal power through war. Later, he also connects with Latin forces and becomes an external threat to the survival of Republican Rome.
In this way, the old ruling class does not seek restoration alone. It acts as an old royal restoration network by connecting family lines, royalists, envoys, and external powers.
5. Layer 2: Order
Layer 2 shows that the restoration movement of the old ruling class is not only a rebellion. It is a self-preservation movement of the old OS.
For the old ruling class, the old kingship is not tyranny. It is the OS that supported its status, property, honor, personal networks, and decision criteria.
Therefore, the formation of the Republic is not seen by them as the recovery of justice. It is seen as the destruction of their OS and the loss of status, property, privilege, and legitimacy.
At this point, the Validity of Decision Criteria, or V, of the old ruling class does not point toward the freedom of the whole community. It points toward the restoration of royal power, the honor of the royal house, and the recovery of lost privileges.
Therefore, they do not easily ask, “Why were we expelled?”
They are more likely to ask, “Why were we deprived?”
The same event has different meanings in two different OS structures.
From the viewpoint of the new regime, the expulsion of kingship is the recovery of freedom.
From the viewpoint of the old ruling class, it is unjust exclusion.
From the viewpoint of the new regime, the disposal of royal property blocks the route of royal restoration.
From the viewpoint of the old ruling class, it is the plunder of property.
From the viewpoint of the new regime, equality under law is the institutionalization of freedom.
From the viewpoint of the old privileged group, it is the loss of favor and discretion.
This difference in meaning creates victim consciousness in the old ruling class.
The old ruling class also describes its restoration as the recovery of order. For them, legitimacy has not moved to the Republic. It remains in the royal house, bloodline, old order, and external alliances.
Therefore, the old ruling class does not describe its restoration as rebellion. It describes it as the recovery of legitimacy that was taken away.
6. Layer 3: Insight
The main insight is this:
The old ruling class seeks restoration through victim consciousness and legitimacy, instead of reflecting on its own tyranny. The reason is that, for the old ruling class, the old regime is not an unjust rule. It is the OS that supported its status, benefits, order, and legitimacy.
From the viewpoint of the new regime, the old regime is tyranny. But from the viewpoint of the old ruling class, the expulsion of kingship is damage: the loss of ruling power, property, honor, and bloodline legitimacy.
For this reason, the old ruling class acts not to reflect on tyranny, but to recover lost legitimacy, restore lost privileges, and rebuild the old order.
This structure can be expressed as follows:
Restoration movement of the old ruling class
= victim consciousness × legitimacy claim × desire to restore privilege × old OS network
In OS Organizational Design Theory, it can also be expressed as follows:
Old OS restoration pressure
= old OS users × old OS information structure × old OS control structure × memory of old OS legitimacy
If the old ruling class remains, and if old information routes, old personal networks, old legitimacy memories, and external connections remain, the new regime receives pressure to return to the old OS.
This insight can be summarized in one sentence:
The old ruling class seeks the recovery of lost legitimacy and privilege instead of reflecting on its tyranny, because for them the old regime was not tyranny but the OS that supported their status, interests, and honor.
7. Implications for the Present
This analysis also applies to modern states and companies.
First, people on the old regime side often see themselves not as perpetrators, but as victims. When organizational reform removes privileges or discretion, the old privileged group may experience it not as correction of injustice, but as unfair treatment against themselves.
Second, the old ruling class does not usually describe restoration as a simple seizure of power. It often describes it as “returning to the proper order,” “restoring lost tradition,” or “recovering correct evaluation.”
Third, reflection is difficult unless the Validity of Decision Criteria, or V, of the old OS is corrected. If the old ruling class remains fixed in the value standards of the old OS, it cannot structurally evaluate its own problematic behavior.
Fourth, when the old ruling class loses property, budget, personnel authority, or information routes, it may remember the loss as a violation of rights, not as institutional reform. This memory strengthens victim consciousness.
Fifth, if the old regime side cannot restore power internally, it may connect with external forces. In modern organizations, this may mean that an old faction connects with business partners, a parent company, political supporters, industry groups, or alumni networks to increase pressure on the new regime.
Therefore, organizational reform cannot be completed by simply removing the old ruling class. It is necessary to redesign or block the memory of old OS legitimacy, information routes, interest connections, and external APIs.
8. Conclusion
The old royal restoration movement in Livy’s Book 2 is not only a rebellion. It is a process in which the old ruling class tries to reboot the old OS through victim consciousness and legitimacy.
The Tarquin family and royalists did not understand themselves as perpetrators of tyranny. For them, kingship was the OS that supported their status, property, honor, bloodline, and benefits.
Therefore, the formation of the Republic was not understood by them as the recovery of freedom. It was understood as the loss of ruling power and privilege.
Based on this recognition, the old ruling class seeks restoration, not reflection. Moreover, that restoration is not described as private desire, but as the recovery of legitimate order.
This is the danger of old regime restoration movements.
If the old ruling class continues to hold the decision criteria of the old OS, and if it connects with old information structures, old control structures, old legitimacy memories, and external APIs, the new regime will always face pressure to return to the old OS.
Therefore, the stability of a new regime requires more than changing institutions. It must identify and manage the victim consciousness, legitimacy claims, desire to restore privilege, and external connections of the old ruling class, so that they do not recombine as an old OS restoration network.
In this sense, Livy’s Book 2 shows an important structure that also applies to modern organizational reform.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome from its Foundation, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.31.00.00.