Earlier nineteenth century inventions

Let's look at it this way. The industrial revolution was, presumably, the basis, directly and indirectly, for nineteenth century inventions such as the light bulb, the phonograph and the motion picture. This provided the wealth and technological basis for them. And, the industrial revolution was largely the product of steam power, and the steam engine. Now, the steam engine was actually invented in the 2nd century A.D., during the height of the Roman Empire, by Hero of Alexandria. So, in a way, we could see the question as, "Why weren't nineteenth century inventions all invented during the Roman Empire, since the Steam Engine was?" Now, while the steam engine was invented in the 2nd century A.D., it was never applied to any practical purpose. Why? Basically, effective construction of full-size, effective steam engines requires precision machining, which really requires cast iron and steel. And, these weren't developed until after the Middle Ages, because they require Coke, which is a byproduct of the use of Coal in blast furnaces. Coal only became widely employed, first in England, with the massive depletion of forests for cooking, and heating purposes. That's why England led the way in the Industrial Revolution, she was the first to need, and widely employ coal for cooking and heating, because she ran out of wood from the forests. Now, in principle, there's really no reason at all that the Romans couldn't have used coal -- it had been known as the "stone that burns" since the dawn of history -- instead of wood, and that they couldn't have develop blast furnaces, discovered the Coke by products and used them to forge cast iron and steel, developed precision machining, and used that to develop steam power, and had a Roman Imperial Industrial Revolution. But, bear in mind, the Romans didn't even invent or employ simpler Medieval inventions like the Horse Collar, the Wind Mill or the Water Mill. Why? They didn't want them! The Romans liked slave labor, and employed it with great effect -- they made the Sahara desert bloom and fertile as it hadn't been for thousands of years, and has never been since, simply by having huge numbers of slaves irrigate it. So, from a Roman point of view, new inventions were merely toys for the rich, they had no real interest in practical change and development, they like things the way they were. In other words, the reason the great nineteenth century inventions weren't invented earlier, is simply that the rich and powerful people didn't want them earlier, they preferred power and personal wealth to social progress! Sound familiar at all?