La guerre du Péloponnèse : une guerre préventive ou préemptive ?

Abstract

The Peloponnesian War is considered by some as a preventive war before the fact, i.e. as expressing the Peloponnesians’ apprehension that the power of Athens become a threat even before witnessing it on their territory. Yet, in the light of the events that preceded that war and of the declarations by the main leaders on either side, the reasons for the conflict seem to be of a different nature, priority being given finally to divine acts as guiding human actions. Thus, even though Thucydides’ primary objective was to rationally recount the facts and nothing but the (verified) facts, he was unable to avoid the Greeks’ traditionally existential conception, which places a cosmological order above men but also above the gods, which a few centuries later Cicero was to term Fatum. Thus, the two Greek powers that share a common culture had no alternative but confrontation, without the possibility of agreeing on any lasting peace.

Keywords

• preventive war
• precautionary war
• Thucydides
• Fatum