[navi0]

TIL the Romans invented the first steam engine but didn’t seem to grasp its revolutionary potential and used it mostly as a party trick:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile?wprov=sfti1

[phkahler]

>> TIL the Romans invented the first steam engine but didn’t seem to grasp its revolutionary potential and used it mostly as a party trick

I guess they were civil engineers, not mechanical engineers.

[lazide]

Why automate/industrialize when you have literal slaves?