NEWTON'S LAW: DRESSING FOR SUCCESS NOT NEW, BUT IT'S LESS PERILOUS TO DO SO

Newspapermen of lore are thought of in a certain uniform: rumpled suit, tie with a condiment or liquor stain, fedora with a card reading "Press" in its band, mouth adorned with a cigarette. Movies have worn out this look.

They are is some distance from reality. Newsrooms, this one included, now ban smoking. We invoke no dress code in our city room, asking only that our people present themselves as professional.

This is agreeable to me. If the governor is coming for a visit, I wear my best suit. If I'm working a night shift and have low odds for encountering the public, I wear jeans. I shave most days, though I wouldn't call it a habit.

Some men in the company have ponytails, some women wear neckties. None of this seems to have an impact on the news product.

Still, I'm aware there are numerous "dress for success" theories that float around. The notion is this: if you look a certain way, prosperity should follow.

These theories are varied as they are abundant. I was staying in an airport hotel in Chicago last year, one of those places that exist for convention trade and business folks. A man walked toward me as I waited on an elevator and he looked like the stereotype guest: an immaculate suit, gleaming shoes, expensive briefcase and steel gray hair.

Very Wall Street. He looked like some arbitrage waiting to happen.

When he stepped past me though, I saw that on the back of his head was pulled taut a ponytail of moderate length. I wondered about his profession, started to ask him about it, then didn't.

His profession really didn't matter. Though few executives dress that way around these parts, he didn't seem the iconoclastic type. Whatever his line of work, he seemed dressed in top form for it.

This is not exactly new stuff. Some written evidence exists that people in ancient Roman times took their appearance seriously and strove for a certain look that denoted their station in life.

Author Mark R. Horowitz says in his book "Stonehenge to Star Wars: Discovering the Present by Exploring the Past" that Romans of 2,000 years ago had grooming salons that were little different from the ones we recognize today.

Indeed, they might not have had ~ph-balanced, environmentally safe shampoos, not to mention tanning beds, but the chore was the same: make the customer look as good as possible.

Don't be misled: the differences of those 20 centuries are notable. For example, you seldom hear of fatal cuts being inflected in 20th century barber shops. There were sometimes grim tidings for Romans looking for a trim and shave.

Horowitz cites a first century poet, Martial, who wrote about a particularly careless barber named Antiochus.

These scars, numbered on my chin, scars such as are fixed on some time-worn boxer's face these a wife formidable with wrathful talons wrought not 'tis Antiochus's steel and hand accursed. ...

Alone among all beasts, the he-goat has good sense.

Bearded he lives to escape Antiochus.

It was also the custom of Romans to follow not the fashion lead of celebrities, but that of the emperor.

In some societies, that may survive. Saddam Hussein had thick eyebrows and a bushy mustache. Many of the Iraqis who were photographed with Saddam had those same physical characteristics ... even the women.

And in China, everybody seemed to dress like Mao.

We should count our lucky stars as Americans that we can dress as we please, like Madonna or M.C. Hammer or whoever.

Let's be thankful too there isn't a nation of people anxious to look like George Bush.

But if that were the case, wouldn't it give you a little higher regard for Dan Quayle?