A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 3
1. Question
Why did Rome send a delegation to Athens to investigate its laws?
This question cannot be answered simply by saying that Rome wanted to import the advanced laws of Athens.
In the early Roman Republic, law and public authority still depended heavily on custom, precedent, patrician legal knowledge, and the discretion of magistrates. These were forms of Non Institutional Control, or NIC.
This structure had an important strength. It allowed Rome to maintain order flexibly through customs that had been shared over a long period.
However, it also created a serious problem.
The content of the law and the standards used to interpret it were not always visible to ordinary citizens.
To the patricians, the existing system was a legitimate order inherited from their ancestors.
To the plebeians, it was an unclear system of rule that only the patricians could interpret.
This difference in recognition developed into a long conflict over the Terentilian proposal, which sought to define the authority of the consuls in written law.
The plebeians wanted public authority to be limited by rules that everyone could know.
The patricians wanted to preserve the existing authority of the magistrates and the traditional order.
If both sides regarded only their own institutional view as legitimate, the debate could not move beyond a struggle over which social order would win.
Rome therefore sent a delegation to investigate Greek law, including the laws of Solon at Athens.
Rome did not simply need a copy of Athenian law.
It needed new information and a new method for comparing, diagnosing, and redesigning its own institutions from a position outside the domestic factional conflict.
This study examines the structural meaning of the delegation through TLA, or Three Layer Analysis: Fact, Order, and Insight. It also uses OS Organizational Design Theory.
2. Abstract
Rome sent a delegation to Athens not to introduce foreign law without change, but to reopen an Information Flow Architecture that had been closed by the conflict between patricians and plebeians.
The purpose was to obtain the institutions of another OS as a model for comparison and use them to redesign Roman law.
Before the delegation was sent, the debate over written law had become part of a power struggle between the two social orders.
A plebeian proposal appeared to the patricians as an attack on magisterial authority.
A patrician argument appeared to the plebeians as a defense of privilege.
In this condition, the identity of the proposer became more important than the function of the proposal.
Athenian law did not directly belong to either Roman social order.
It could therefore serve as a relatively independent reference model.
Through the investigation of foreign law, Rome attempted to learn:
- how to convert custom into written law
- how to define the authority of magistrates
- how to make law visible to citizens
- how to organize trials, rights, and duties through procedures
- how to draft, discuss, and approve law
- how to adapt foreign institutions to the Roman execution environment
After the delegation returned, Rome established the Decemvirate.
The draft laws were displayed to the citizens, revised after public comment, and submitted for approval by the assembly.
The delegation was therefore not only an information gathering mission.
It was part of an institutional design process that used external comparison to make the defects of the Roman OS visible, translated foreign knowledge into Roman institutions, and converted it into Effective Institutional Control through domestic approval.
3. Research Method
This study uses TLA, or Three Layer Analysis.
TLA divides historical material into three layers.
The first layer is Fact. It organizes the events, persons, demands for reform, the delegation, and the process of lawmaking recorded in Livy’s text.
The second layer is Order. It extracts the structures behind the facts, including Information Flow Architecture, social conflict, external APIs, institutional comparison, knowledge transfer, execution environment fit, and the formation of legitimacy.
The third layer is Insight. It derives essential lessons that can also be applied to modern states and organizations.
This study also uses OS Organizational Design Theory R1.31.04.00.
The theory treats a state or organization as an OS. This study focuses on Decision-Criteria Validity V, Information Flow Architecture IA, Human Resource Governance H, external APIs, Institutional Control IC, Effective IC, and execution environment fit.
The main concepts used in this study are as follows.
V: Decision-Criteria Validity
V determines which institutions the OS regards as legitimate, useful, and suitable.
IA: Information Flow Architecture
IA shows where information needed for institutional design comes from and how it reaches decision makers.
H: Human Resource Governance
H determines who is selected to investigate, design, implement, and operate institutions.
NIC: Non Institutional Control
NIC includes custom, precedent, reputation, and social norms that regulate conduct without being formally written.
IC: Institutional Control
IC regulates behavior through written laws, institutions, rules, and penalties.
Effective IC
Effective IC is not merely a written institution. It is an institution that citizens understand, can access, and can use in practice.
External API
An external API is a connection through which one OS exchanges information, institutions, resources, or knowledge with another OS.
Execution environment fit
Execution environment fit is the degree to which an institution or application matches the culture, abilities, resources, and social structure of the OS in which it is used.
4. Layer 1: Fact
In Livy’s Book 3, the demand for written law developed into a long political conflict.
In Section 9, the tribune Terentilius proposed a law that would define the authority of the consuls.
The monarchy had already ended. However, from the plebeian point of view, the consuls still possessed authority close to royal power.
The proposal attempted to clarify the limits of consular authority and reduce the discretionary power of magistrates.
The patricians opposed it.
The proposal was repeatedly submitted, and conflict continued among the Senate, the tribunes, and the plebeians.
In Sections 19 to 21, conflict and temporary compromise continued among the tribunes, the Senate, and the magistrates.
In Section 24, the trial of Volscius became connected with the vote on the proposal. Judicial procedure itself became part of the political conflict between the social orders.
In Section 30, an increase in the number of tribunes was connected with plebeian cooperation in military recruitment. Public offices and military participation became subjects of political exchange.
After this long period of deadlock, Rome sent a delegation to Athens in Section 31 to investigate Greek law, including the laws of Solon.
In Section 32, the delegation returned with legal materials. The tribunes then demanded that a body be created to draft Roman law on the basis of the investigation.
In Section 33, the Decemvirate was established to prepare written law.
Members of the delegation to Athens were also selected for the first Decemvirate.
In Section 34, the Decemvirs prepared a draft consisting of ten tables.
The draft was displayed to the citizens.
It was revised after public comments and then submitted for approval by the assembly.
This process shows that the results of the foreign investigation were not introduced into Rome without change.
They were drafted, published, revised, and approved inside Rome.
5. Layer 2: Order
The Roman delegation was not merely an information gathering mission.
Its central function was to restart institutional design that had become closed by domestic conflict.
Rome’s Information Flow Architecture had become closed
The patricians and plebeians used different Decision-Criteria Validity.
The patricians emphasized:
- ancestral custom
- the authority of magistrates
- the experience of the Senate
- the social order
- continuity of the state
The plebeians emphasized:
- clear limits on public authority
- protection of the body and freedom
- predictable legal judgment
- limits on patrician discretion
- equal access to law
Both sides represented values needed by the Roman community.
However, without a common standard of evaluation, each side understood the proposal of the other as an attack rather than as institutional improvement.
Repeating debate among the same actors, inside the same conflict, and with the same decision criteria did not create new institutional knowledge.
The structure can be expressed as follows:
Same Actors
× Same Conflict Structure
× Same Decision Criteria
＝ Repetition of the Same Institutional Conflict
Sending a delegation to Athens opened this closed IA to an external source of information.
A foreign institution created a third reference point
When reform was discussed only inside Rome, every proposal appeared to be either a patrician proposal or a plebeian proposal.
Accepting one proposal could therefore be interpreted as the victory of one social order over the other.
Athenian law did not belong directly to either Roman side.
It made new comparisons possible.
Rome could ask:
- How did another state limit public authority?
- How did it combine the discretion of magistrates with state capacity?
- Could written and public law exist without weakening government?
- How were citizen participation and public order connected?
- Through what procedures were disputes processed?
This changed the central question.
The earlier question was:
Which social order will win?
The new question became:
Which institution can function?
External comparison made it possible to move the debate from factional conflict toward institutional design.
Athens was an earlier case of written law
Rome did not lack all law or social norms.
Custom, precedent, religious rules, and magisterial authority already supported Roman order.
The problem was how to convert these rules into a public and shared legal system.
In Livy’s narrative, the laws of Solon represented an earlier attempt to use written law to process social conflict, debt, status, and public order.
Athens therefore became an empirical reference point for the question:
Can law actually be written and operated as a public system?
A previous example from another OS changed written law from an abstract demand into a practical design problem.
Writing law required institutional knowledge
Written law could not be created simply by ordering someone to write rules.
Rome needed knowledge about:
- the classification of regulated matters
- the expression of rights and duties
- judicial procedure
- the boundaries of public authority
- the publication of law
- citizen approval
- legal revision
- the connection between existing customs and written rules
Rome possessed rich experience in war, senatorial government, religious practice, and customary law.
However, it had limited experience in converting broad governing customs into a comprehensive written legal system.
The delegation was therefore a research package for acquiring not only legal texts, but also knowledge about how law could operate as an institution.
The delegation developed institutional designers
Members of the delegation later became members of the first Decemvirate.
They were not merely messengers carrying foreign texts.
They:
- investigated foreign law directly
- learned the structure behind those laws
- brought legal knowledge back to Rome
- connected that knowledge to the drafting of Roman law
The mission therefore developed H as well as IA.
It created people who could investigate and compare institutions, then use that knowledge in domestic institutional design.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Rome did not send the delegation because it believed that a correct answer already existed outside Rome.
It sent the delegation because Roman knowledge, custom, and decision criteria had become deeply embedded in the conflict between patricians and plebeians.
External comparison is a mirror for diagnosing one’s own OS
The value of investigating foreign law was not limited to learning about another state.
Examining another OS made Rome’s own structural problems visible.
When another state had public written law, Rome could recognize that its own legal knowledge was concentrated in a limited social group.
When another state defined the authority of magistrates, Rome could recognize the unclear limits of consular power.
When citizens elsewhere could refer to published law, Rome could recognize the asymmetry of legal information inside its own society.
External comparison therefore performs two functions:
Learning about another state
and
Learning about one’s own state
By investigating Athens, the delegation also diagnosed Rome.
Legal investigation was comparative diagnosis, not institutional import
If the delegation is understood only as a mission to bring back foreign legal texts, Rome appears to have imported Athenian institutions passively.
However, Rome did not need a simple copy of Athenian law.
It needed to examine:
- which problems were handled by written law
- how public authority was defined
- how citizens obtained access to law
- how trials were organized
- how far magisterial discretion was limited
- how lawmaking was connected with popular approval
The resulting knowledge then had to be translated into Roman society.
The delegation was an external API for institutional knowledge
In OS Organizational Design Theory, an external API connects one OS with another.
The delegation to Athens was an external API designed to acquire institutional knowledge rather than military or commercial resources.
Information entering through this API included:
- written laws centered on the laws of Solon
- methods for organizing legal subjects
- the relationship between magistrates and citizens
- rules concerning trials, status, and property
- the idea that law should be public
- earlier experience of institutional reform
However, these elements could not be inserted into Rome without change.
Athens and Rome differed in:
- political structure
- social orders
- urban scale
- economic structure
- citizenship
- public offices
- religious institutions
- family organization
- military customs
- external conditions
The process therefore required two stages:
Acquisition of External Institutions
→ Translation and Adaptation to the Roman Execution Environment
Using Athenian law as a reference did not mean turning Rome into Athens.
External investigation increased the legitimacy of reform
As long as written law remained only a plebeian demand, the patricians could reject it as one part of social conflict.
Once Rome officially sent a delegation and received the results, the status of the issue changed.
Written law was no longer only a political demand from the tribunes.
It became an institutional question formally investigated by the Roman state.
The transformation can be expressed as follows:
Plebeian Demand
→ Official State Investigation
→ Common Institutional Design
The information formally obtained by the delegation also provided materials that both patricians and plebeians could examine.
This improved IA by connecting the debate to common information rather than only to rumor, custom, and factional claims.
Foreign institutions did not replace domestic approval
Referring to another state did not mean ending Roman debate by saying, “Athens does it this way.”
Foreign institutions were materials for comparison and design.
The final system had to fit the Roman execution environment and receive approval from Roman citizens.
The first Decemvirate displayed its draft laws, received public comments, revised the text, and submitted it to the assembly.
The necessary conversion process was:
External Investigation
→ Domestic Drafting
→ Publication
→ Citizen Comment
→ Revision
→ Assembly Approval
Foreign knowledge provided materials for institutional design.
The legitimacy of Roman law was created through domestic publication and approval.
Uncritical transplantation created risks
An institution that functioned in another OS would not necessarily function in Rome.
Copying legal texts without understanding their purpose would produce only a formal imitation.
Rome needed to understand:
- why each rule had been created
- which social problem it addressed
- which other institutions supported it
- who implemented it
- what correction routes existed
- which cultural, human, and material conditions it assumed
An institution does not function as an isolated component.
Law, courts, magistrates, assemblies, appeals, monitoring, and enforcement must operate as a connected institutional package.
The delegation and the Decemvirate had different functions
External investigation alone could not create Roman law.
The delegation returned with legal information and institutional materials.
Rome still had to:
- compare them with Roman customs
- select suitable rules
- rewrite them for Roman society
- organize them into a legal system
- publish the draft
- receive citizen comments
- obtain approval from the assembly
The Decemvirate was therefore established as a specialized body for domestic institutional conversion.
The relationship can be expressed as follows:
Delegation
＝ External Information Acquisition Package
Decemvirate
＝ Domestic Institutional Conversion Package
The later despotism of the Decemvirs does not prove that the investigation of foreign law was a mistake.
The value of external knowledge and the control of the institution implementing it are separate issues.
Useful institutional knowledge can still be misused when the implementing body lacks limits on term, appeal, monitoring, and exit conditions.
Structural functions of the Athenian delegation
The delegation performed several connected functions.
| Function | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Information Acquisition | Investigating foreign written law and institutional practice |
| Comparative Diagnosis | Making defects and unclear boundaries in Roman institutions visible |
| Expansion of Options | Obtaining possibilities beyond patrician and plebeian proposals |
| Relative Neutralization | Creating a reference point outside the immediate Roman conflict |
| Formation of Legitimacy | Turning written law into an officially investigated state issue |
| Human Resource Development | Developing people able to understand and design legal institutions |
| Preparation for Implementation | Obtaining materials for drafting, publication, and approval |
| External API Construction | Creating a route for obtaining institutional knowledge from another OS |
Model of external institutional learning
The value of the investigation can be expressed as follows:
Value of Institutional Investigation
＝ Quality of External Knowledge
× Relevance to the Problems of the OS
× Reliability of Information
× Execution Environment Fit
× Possibility of Domestic Approval
The process of external institutional learning can be expressed as follows:
Domestic Institutional Conflict
→ Closure of IA
→ Comparative Information through an External API
→ Visibility of Defects in the OS
→ Expansion of Institutional Options
→ Translation into Roman Institutions
→ Public Deliberation
→ Popular Approval
→ Effective IC
The failure of institutional transplantation can be expressed as follows:
Blind Reliance on External Authority
× Poor Execution Environment Fit
× Omission of Domestic Deliberation
× Absence of Correction Circuits
＝ Failure of Institutional Transplantation
The final insight is as follows:
Rome sent a delegation to Athens not to copy a foreign system, but to open an Information Flow Architecture that had been closed by internal conflict. Rome used the institutions of another OS as a comparative standard, made defects in its own OS visible, and designed common law according to institutional function rather than social victory. The essence of external institutional learning is not import. It is self-institutionalization through comparison, translation, and domestic approval.
7. Implications for the Modern World
This analysis can be applied to institutional reform in modern companies, the study of overseas systems, the introduction of industry standards, and the use of consultants.
When internal conflict becomes strong, proposals are often judged by the identity of the proposer rather than by their content.
A proposal from the sales division may be treated as an attack on manufacturing.
A proposal from field employees may be treated as resistance to management.
A reform proposed by executives may be treated as stronger control over employees.
In this condition, repeating internal debate often reproduces the same conflict.
External cases, overseas institutions, industry standards, and independent investigations can help break this closure.
However, their purpose is not to copy another organization.
The purposes of external comparison are to:
- discover problems that can no longer be seen internally
- place internal factional claims in perspective
- increase the number of institutional options
- test whether a system can be implemented
- identify differences in assumptions
- redesign the system for one’s own organization
Before introducing an external institution, an organization should examine the following points.
What problem does the institution solve?
The organization must identify the actual problem, rather than focusing only on the name or visible form of the institution.
Under what conditions does it function?
The organization must examine assumptions concerning culture, human capability, resources, authority, monitoring, and enforcement.
What must be translated?
The differences between the original organization and the receiving organization must be identified.
The institution must then be adapted to the receiving execution environment.
Who drafts and approves it?
External experts should not complete the design alone.
Field members, management, and related departments must participate in review and approval.
Can it be corrected after introduction?
The organization must design routes for objection, evaluation, revision, and withdrawal.
The value of an external benchmark does not come from the existence of a completed answer outside the organization.
Its value comes from allowing the organization to see its own internal structure objectively.
8. Conclusion
The delegation to Athens in Livy’s Book 3 was an important turning point in the formation of Roman law.
Inside Rome, conflict over the Terentilian proposal had continued for many years.
The plebeians demanded:
- clear limits on magisterial authority
- protection of freedom
- predictable legal judgments
The patricians emphasized:
- ancestral custom
- the authority of magistrates
- senatorial experience
- the preservation of state order
Both Decision-Criteria Validity contained values needed by the Roman community.
However, inside the domestic conflict, the social order of the proposer became more important than the function of the proposal.
Rome therefore referred to Athens as an external OS.
Athenian law was a comparative model that did not directly belong to either Roman social order.
The delegation obtained institutional knowledge concerning written law, the boundaries of authority, judicial procedure, public access to law, and lawmaking.
At the same time, external comparison made Rome’s own problems visible:
- legal knowledge was concentrated in one social order
- the limits of consular authority were unclear
- citizens had limited access to law
- judicial procedure had become part of factional conflict
- Rome lacked a stable process for creating public law
Rome did not transplant Athenian law without change.
The Decemvirate drafted Roman rules from the knowledge brought back by the delegation.
The draft was displayed to citizens, revised after comments, and submitted for approval by the assembly.
The process was:
External Investigation
→ Comparative Diagnosis
→ Domestic Translation
→ Public Deliberation
→ Citizen Approval
→ Effective IC
The structural value of the mission was that it:
- opened a closed IA
- added institutional options beyond the domestic conflict
- changed written law into an officially recognized state issue
- made defects in the Roman OS visible
- developed Human Resource Governance for legal design
- prepared foreign knowledge for domestic institutional translation
The conclusion of this study is clear:
Rome sent a delegation to Athens not because it believed that the correct answer existed abroad. It used foreign institutions as a mirror for seeing its own problems and rebuilt common law through comparison, translation, publication, and approval when domestic social conflict alone could no longer produce a shared system.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome from its Foundation, Book 3. Japanese translation: Iwaya Satoshi, Roma kenkoku irai no rekishi 2, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory R1.31.04.00.