Spartacus's name made the Romans afraid because he was a very aggressive and dangerous man
his attitude towards other slaves was brutal
he could get support from other nations
he was a symbol of the danger of a slave rebellion
he was supported by a number of officers in the Roman army
According to scholars, in ancient Italy, the slave population was almost as big as that of Roman citizens
every family owned at least three slaves
there were more slaves than free citizens
some of the slaves were specially educated
slaves sometimes overthrew their masters
The author believes that a unity of slaves headed by a capable leader played a major role in battles against Roman forces
would have been strong enough to beat any army
helped Spartacus win the battle at Mount Vesuvius
would increase production on plantations
would still find it extremely hard to resist experienced Roman soldiers
89 THE CHINESE LANGUAGE China is the only country in the world with a literature written in one script for more than 3,000 consecutive years. This continuity results largely from the nature of the written language itself. It is the use of characters, not letters as in Western languages, that is most important in the Chinese language. The characters stand for things or ideas and so, unlike groups of letters, they cannot, and need never be, sounded. Thus Chinese could be read by people in all parts of the country in spite of gradual changes in pronunciation, the emergence of regional dialects, and modification of the characters. The dominance of the written language has had significant effects on the development of the literature. In handwriting or in print, a piece of literature has visual appeal. This has given rise to the great respect that calligraphy enjoys in China, where it has been regarded for at least sixteen centuries as a fine art comparable to painting. The main disadvantage of written Chinese, however, is the great number of characters it contains: Even basic reading and writing require a knowledge of more than 1,000 characters.