The industrial revolution was more about motorized equipment than about materials.
Once you have a steam engine you can spin cotton, you can have trains, steamboats and later, turbines connected to generators in power plants.
It's a big upgrade from windmills, horses and mules.
And you cannot have a steam engine without knowing about the gas laws, laws of motion, etc. So advances in math, physics and chemistry to extends that were unknown to the romans were necessary to get to a steam engine.
The ability to efficiently create energy anywhere and the maximum level of power that can be output seem critical.
Creating energy, but only in specific locations, doesn't have the broader social impact.
And similarly, many applications require a minimum level of power (say, 2x horse) before they're fundamentally transformed.
The industrial revolution was, from my perspective, an ouroboros of the means to produce power increasing our means to produce those means, and out of novel raw materials.
Once you have a steam engine you can spin cotton, you can have trains, steamboats and later, turbines connected to generators in power plants.
It's a big upgrade from windmills, horses and mules.
And you cannot have a steam engine without knowing about the gas laws, laws of motion, etc. So advances in math, physics and chemistry to extends that were unknown to the romans were necessary to get to a steam engine.
You also cannot have an steam engine without having pistons, crankshafts, etc. Some of them were known to the Islamic civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ingenious_Devices
So... no! Steampunk romans could not have been a thing.