Did Greeks and Romans really have prototypes for steam machines? It’s said those were somewhat close to the industrial revolution nearly 1000 years before.

by Chilaquil420
Noble_Devil_Boruta

Not really. The 'steam machines', mainly Hero's aeolipile, were not a viable design for either implementation or further development, as discussed in this response by u/Bodark43, or this one by u/Spacecircles and myself.

Additonally, u/restricteddata and u/half3clipse discuss what was needed to develop and working engine in this thread.

To complement the above entries, u/wotan_weevil provides a comparison between the aeolipile and and human work in this thread.

And an entry about whether Greeks and Romans abandoned pursuit of steam engines because of the easy access to slave labour can be also found here, courtesy of u/Bodark43 and u/XenophonTheAthenian.

Holy_Shit_HeckHounds