In making preparations for his triumph, besides the prisoners and deserters from the barbarian armies, he picked out the men of greatest stature in all Gaul, such as he said were fittest to grace a triumph, with some of the chiefs, and reserved them to appear in the procession, obliging them not only to dye their hair yellow and let it grow long, but to learn the German language and assume the names commonly used in that country. He ordered likewise the gallies in which he had entered the ocean to be conveyed to Rome a great part of the way by land, and wrote to his comptrollers in the city " to make proper preparations for a triumph against his arrival, at as small expense as possible; but on a scale such as had never been seen before, since they had full power over the property of every one."