Modern management techniques can be traced form Alexander the Great's use of staff to the assembly-line methods of the arsenal of Venice; form the theorizing of Niccolo Machiavelli on the nature of leadership to Adam Smith's advocacy of the division of labor; and form Robert Owen's assertion that "vital machines"(employees) should be given as much attention as "inanimate machines" to Charles Babbage's contention that there existed "basic principles of management