Soon the Carthaginians were so hard pressed that they sent frantic messages to Hannibal to come to their aid. They knew that the death struggle was upon them. Hannibal came. Even his genius could not, at this stage, change the fortunes of war. He had no time to train the raw Carthaginian levies. His veterans were invincible, but they were vastly outnumbered when on the plains of Zama, five days’ march from Carthage, he met Scipio in the final battle (202). It was a victory for Rome. Hannibal, who always saw things as they were, knew that the long struggle was over. Carthage must make what terms it could. These terms were severe. The city lost all its foreign possessions, had to pay a big indemnity, and hand over all but twenty men-of-war and all elephants; no military operations even within Africa could be undertaken save by permission of Rome. The city, however, was left free. Scipio set his face firmly against those who clamoured for the utter destruction of Carthage. In the same way he protested against the demand made six years later for the banishment of Hannibal. Scipio returned to Rome amid scenes of extraordinary enthusiasm and rejoicing. All the way from Rhegium, where he landed, to Rome itself the people came out and lined the roads, hailing him as the man who had saved his country. He entered the city in triumph, marching to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill to lay before the altar his wreaths of olive and laurel. Magnificent games were held, lasting for several days, in honour of his victory, and he himself was given the name Africanus. For the next few years Africanus lived in Rome the life of a private citizen, concerned with politics, giving his spare time to the study of Greek literature, to which he was devoted. This study he shared with many friends, among them Laelius, who had been his devoted lieutenant in the Spanish and African wars, Tiberius Gracchus the Elder, the husband of Scipio’s daughter Cornelia, herself a woman of high character and educated ability; and Aemilius Paulus, whose sister he married and whose nephew was afterwards adopted into the family of the Scipios by the son of Africanus and known as Scipio Aemilianus. As they read the plays, poetry, and philosophy of the Greeks, educated Romans learned that they were not alone in the world. Before them had lived a people who were skilled in all the arts of life at a time when they themselves were rude barbarians, like the Gauls whom they despised.