A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 2
1. Question
Why did equality under law feel not like freedom, but like the loss of discretion and favor, to the old privileged class?
In Livy’s History of Rome, Book 2, Rome expels the kings and begins to form the Republic. Royal power is changed into the consulship. One-year terms, two consuls, and the strengthening of the senate begin to prevent arbitrary rule by a king.
However, the formation of the Republic did not have the same meaning for everyone.
From the viewpoint of the whole community, equality under law was the institutionalization of freedom. It protected citizens from the personal will, mood, and discretion of the king.
But for young royalists and aristocratic houses close to the old royal OS, equality under law was not freedom. It meant the loss of the king’s favor, discretion, special treatment, social superiority, and information connection with the royal house.
This study uses OS Organizational Design Theory to explain why equality under law was felt as “unfreedom” by the old privileged class.
2. Research Abstract
Equality under law felt like unfreedom to the old privileged class because they had received incentives from the old royal OS.
These incentives included the king’s favor, discretion, special treatment, social superiority, and information connection with the royal house.
From the viewpoint of the whole community, equality under law limited the arbitrary rule of the king and institutionalized civic freedom.
However, for some users close to the old royal OS, equality under law did not mean “freedom through fair treatment.” It meant “the loss of special treatment that only they had received.”
In other words, equality under law did not have the same meaning for all users.
For plebeians and ordinary citizens, it was freedom from the king’s arbitrary rule.
For young aristocrats close to the royal house, it was the loss of incentives gained from the old OS.
Therefore, equality under law was a new OS specification that blocked old OS incentives for the old privileged class.
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 freedom after the expulsion of kingship, the conspiracy to restore kingship, the discovery of the conspiracy, and the disposal of royal property.
Layer 2 is Order. It extracts the institutional structure behind these facts. The main structures are rule by law, the old royal restoration network, young royalists and the privileged group that lost power, and the disposal of royal property and irreversibility.
Layer 3 is Insight. It connects these structures to OS Organizational Design Theory. In this study, equality under law is read through the blocking of old OS incentives, old OS dependency rate, and old OS restoration pressure.
4. Layer 1: Fact
At the beginning of Livy’s Book 2, Rome changes from kingship to the consulship after the expulsion of the kings. The rule of the king ends. One-year terms, two consuls, and the strengthening of the senate form the early structure of the republican OS.
This institutional change was designed to secure freedom for the Roman community. It was a change from the arbitrary rule of one king to a system controlled by offices, terms, and institutions.
However, a conspiracy to restore kingship appears soon after this change.
Young Roman men close to the royal house and envoys of the Tarquin family try to restore royal power. They do not see equality under law as freedom. They see it as unfreedom. Under kingship, people close to the king could receive favor, discretion, and special treatment.
The conspiracy is discovered through letters sent to Tarquinius. A slave reports the plot, and the evidence is preserved. The conspirators are arrested. This shows that information connections with the old royal house became a route of betrayal inside the Republic.
The king’s property is also disposed of. It is not placed in the treasury. It is given to the plebeians for plunder. This process cuts interest reconnection with the royal faction and makes clear a new reward-punishment order through the punishment of traitors and the reward of the informer.
Thus, in early Republican Rome, the reaction of the old royal OS beneficiaries appeared just after equality under law began to function.
5. Layer 2: Order
Layer 2 shows that equality under law had completely different meanings for the whole community and for the old privileged class.
The republican OS tried to move the state through law, terms, and procedures. This was a structure of rule by institution, not rule by the will or discretion of one king.
For ordinary citizens, this structure was protection. Their life, property, and status became less dependent on the mood of the king or powerful persons.
But for the old privileged class, the meaning was opposite.
They had been able to gain benefits beyond general rules because royal discretion existed. Closeness to the king, connection with the royal house, and aristocratic family status worked as political and social resources.
For this reason, equality under law was not a system that protected them. Rather, it was a system that closed the exceptional route that only they had used.
The same institution had different meanings on each side.
For the Republic, equality under law was freedom.
For the old privileged class, equality under law was the end of special treatment.
For the Republic, stable procedure was healthy rule.
For the old privileged class, stable procedure was the blocking of direct access to the king.
For the Republic, the removal of arbitrary rule was the condition of freedom.
For the old privileged class, it was the loss of flexible royal favor.
Therefore, equality under law invalidated the incentives that the old privileged class had received from the old royal OS.
6. Layer 3: Insight
The main insight is this:
In early Republican Rome, equality under law felt like unfreedom to the old privileged class because they had received incentives from the old royal OS. These incentives included the king’s favor, discretionary benefits, special treatment, social superiority, information connection with the royal house, and future hope of restoration.
For the whole community, republican rule by law was the institutionalization of freedom. But for some users with a high old OS dependency rate, it was a system that blocked the incentives they had received from the old OS.
For this reason, they saw equality under law not as freedom, but as the loss of discretion and favor. This created the temptation of royal restoration.
This structure can be expressed as follows:
Unfreedom felt by the old privileged class
= equality under law × loss of old OS incentives × old OS dependency rate
This can also be connected to the OS Organizational Design Theory model of post-revolutionary new OS stability:
Long-term stability of the new OS
= health of the new OS × (1 − old OS influence) × (1 − old OS dependency rate)
The republican OS tried to improve the health of the new OS through rule by law, one-year terms, two consuls, and the strengthening of the senate.
However, some users who had received strong incentives from the old royal OS still had a high old OS dependency rate. For them, the transition to the republican OS was not the gain of freedom. It was the invalidation of assets that they had held inside the old OS.
Old OS restoration pressure can also be expressed as follows:
Old OS restoration pressure
= old OS incentives × old OS information structure × old OS infrastructure × old OS application × old OS execution environment
In this case, old OS incentives are the central factor.
Through equality under law, the old privileged class lost the following things.
The king’s favor was an informal operation of H.
The king’s discretion was an individual application of V.
Special treatment was an exception from general law.
Closeness to the royal house was access to the old OS information structure.
Social superiority was a status asset inside the old OS.
Hope of restoration was the possibility of restarting old OS applications.
Therefore, equality under law worked in the following way for the old privileged class:
Equality under law = blocking of old OS incentives
This blocking increased old OS restoration pressure.
In other words, equality under law became a trigger of old OS restoration pressure for users with a high old OS dependency rate.
This insight can be summarized in one sentence:
Equality under law felt like unfreedom to the old privileged class because rule by law blocked old OS incentives such as the king’s favor, discretion, and special treatment, and invalidated the benefit routes of users with a high old OS dependency rate.
7. Implications for the Present
This analysis also applies to modern states and companies.
First, fairness and transparency do not have the same meaning for all users. For the whole organization, they may improve health. But for users who gained benefits from ambiguity and discretion in the old system, they may feel like unfreedom.
Second, resistance to institutional reform does not always mean that the reform has failed. Rather, resistance may appear because the reform has actually begun to block old OS incentives.
Third, users with a high old OS dependency rate may see equality in the new OS not as freedom, but as loss. Users who gained benefits through personal networks, discretion, exceptions, and informal routes often feel that rule-based management is restrictive.
Fourth, when the old OS dependency rate is high only among some users, resistance often appears not as open rebellion, but as secret talks, conspiracy, betrayal, and informal networks. This happens because the old OS information structure remains.
Fifth, the stability of the new OS requires observation of old OS incentives. Who gained benefits from the old system? Which incentives were lost? Which users have a motive to return to the old OS? Without these questions, it is difficult to understand the reaction after reform.
In modern organizations, transparency, fairness, rule-based management, stronger audit, and standardized personnel evaluation improve the health of the whole organization. However, for those who benefited from discretion, personal networks, and exceptions in the old system, these reforms may feel like loss of freedom.
8. Conclusion
The conspiracy to restore kingship in Livy’s Book 2 does not show the failure of equality under law. Rather, it shows a reaction caused by equality under law beginning to block incentives from the old royal OS.
For Republican Rome, equality under law was the institutionalization of freedom. It limited the arbitrary rule of the king and placed the whole community under law.
However, for the beneficiaries of the old royal OS, equality under law was not freedom. It meant the loss of the king’s favor, discretion, special treatment, social superiority, information connection with the royal house, and hope of restoration.
In other words, the same word “freedom” had different meanings in the republican OS and the old royal OS.
For the Republic, freedom meant the liberation of the community from the arbitrary rule of the king.
For the old privileged class, freedom meant being specially treated through the king’s discretion.
Therefore, equality under law felt to the old privileged class like the loss of their freedom.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, this was the blocking of old OS incentives. Equality under law invalidated informal operation of H, individual application of V, access to old OS information structures, and status assets inside the old OS.
In this sense, early Republican Rome is an important case for thinking about new OS stability after a revolution.
A new OS does not become stable at the moment when the old OS is rewritten. Some users who lose old OS incentives may experience that loss as unfreedom and generate old OS restoration pressure.
Therefore, post-reform regime design is not only about building institutions. It is also about observing old OS incentives and designing how users with a high old OS dependency rate will be reconnected to the new OS.
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.