Der erste heilige Krieg und die Erzeugung von Plausibilität: intentionale Konstrukte, rhetorische Techniken und historische Kontexte

The question this article seeks to answer is not whether the First Sacred War is historical. Rather, this article seeks to understand why it was considered plausible by the ancient Greeks themselves, and how it was made more and more plausible to counter those who already disputed its authenticity in antiquity. To this end, on the one hand, the rhetorical techniques used in the Fourth century to construct the plausibility of the so-called First Sacred War will be analysed; on the other hand, the elements and contexts that fostered the processes of constructing the plausibility of the Sacred War within the framework of intentional histories will be explored. One context seems particularly interesting: the Fifth century, especially the years between the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War.