Without a replacement for John Wilkinson[1], who was obsessed with the production of, and profit from, cast iron... you're not getting a cylinder boring machine. Watt can't do anything useful towards an efficient, high pressure steam engine without them.
I won't disagree with that. I was just comparing two theoreticians; I'm not sure what Greek or Roman I'd pair with Wilkinson. We tend not to know the Greek and Roman engineers by name.