Dr. John Rao begins by arguing that aspects of the crusading spirit are natural to man, and that it was also alive in the ancient world already. Cyrus the Great, Isocrates and Alexander the Great, historians like Polybius, and the Maccabees all illustrate examples of a crusading spirit or a call to a crusade. Taken from: Crusading, the Crusader & the Christian Order - 2002 VonHildebrand Institute