Why did the Roman Empire never have an industrial revolution?

Craft's point is that the timing of Industrial Revolution was partly random and, in the absence of repeated experiments, we will never have precise causal estimates of the impact of any single factor that distinguished 18th century England, from France, Qing China, or indeed ancient Rome. read more

It did have a technology revolution. They are credited with indoor plumbing, my personal favorite for greatest invention, the settlement of England, construction of roads, even today we still follow the same standards set by the Roman Empire. Now, by Industrial Revolution by England standard: the math was not there. read more

Considering that the Roman Empire -was- stable for another thousand years (in the form of the Byzantine Empire, though the term"Byzantine" is a modern term), I would doubt that the Empire in the West would have developed such industry since the East didn't. read more

Their industrial efforts tended to be smaller than ours, and they did not have many large companies in the modern sense. But, they were possibly the most industrialized nation/empire of their time, except perhaps for China. read more