Probably required too much power to keep things cool for long time

considering that most of what roman slaves did was agriculture

Anything else is stagnating and party tricks

and all the steam engine is good for really is pumping water

assuming you dont have high class metallurgy to make railroads and stuff

i think the slaves jobs wouldve been pretty secure even if they did mechanize it

but they didnt

Imagine if a Roman built a steam boat

can you fucking imagine steampunk rome

to build a steam boat you need paddles

or screws

Or a train

they didnt have the metallurgy for screws

much less a full train

maybe a paddle boat

What would you need screws for

What I’m pretty sure they had screw technology

screws make ships move

theyre how you translate an engines power into propulsion

they didn't even have steel afaik

in modern ships

at least not in any bigger quantities

these are massive screws

youd need proper metallurgy

likewise even making a proper steam engine

would require good steel

to make the furnace

i mean hell

you wanna make a locomotive

the entire thing is solid steel

They knew that steel is sometimes made when you make iron
but they didn't understand how and when it's created

Rome invented screws actually so that'd work

theres a difference between

a small screw

in a wooden block

and a ships screw

They were wood ofc

ship screws are shaped entirely differently first of all

second of all they are massive

wooden screws wouldnt work at all

wouldn't bronze work?