This dissertation aims at offering a history of the concept balance of power. Drawing on the Begriffsgeschichte, I will try to understand how a given space of experience and a given horizon of expectations have been constituted through this concept. The argument is divided into two parts. In the first part the aim is to understand how the concept emerged out of the collapse of the Medieval order. It is possible to identify in this period what will be called an anti-imperial corollary. This very axiological dimension needs to be contemplated as a reference to the appearance of this term in the political lexicon. In the second part the fixation of the concept in the current international language will be examined. An element that brought about this process and that will be analysed was the presence of a commercial sociability as part of the political realm. Furthermore, the fixation is related to a conservative corollary which elicits a specific conception of the functioning of international politics. Last but not least, the chapters in this part will present a discussion of the temporal dimension of balance of power with special attention to the claim that this concept works as an ontological regulator of history. From the temporal point of view, the argument of this dissertation deals with a period that goes from the 13th to the 19th century.