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A friend of mine had the theory that the Romans were perilously close to having the industrial revolution. For example, they had virtually all of the ingredients necessary to have water-powered machinery: they could move water around through aquaducts, they had wheels and other assorted parts, and they had basic metallurgy (mostly for military applications, I suppose). The question is whether they had (a) the financial and legal framework, much less political stability, for such businesses to come to fruition, and (b) whether there was any need for mechanized labor when they had perfectly functional slave labor, instead.

Marxist political economy would say clearly (b), but I think it's both.

BTW, from purely technoogical and scientific side, Greeks were also close (see, for example, Heron of Alexandria for his steam engine precusors or Antikythera Machanism for an elaborate astronomical analog computer). But again, there was no need for widespread use of any of that in their economy.

BTW, I seem to remember reading an entertainong piece of SF where Romans invented bicycle and discovered America.