Seems as if all the stairs would get in the way, the roads were built for feet. Simple wheeled barrows might be better, similar to the big wheeled Chinese 'wooden ox' with hand grips on both ends. The roads could have ramps at the steps, in the middle or on the side.
That's what I read, too. Not voice, just telegraphy, up/over/hit-etc. I just wondered how large and heavy sets like that would be. Pics from ww2 show there were back pack radios that required two men, one of them carried batteries.
From reading-a series of miners friends was used. Steam piston pumps were more efficient, for sure. Horses were also used in water removal before steam-how? Treadmills, or what? Agricola showed bucket hoists.
The first mine pumping steam engines didn't use iron, didn't have pistons-'the miners friend', just partial vacuum in a copper boiler, remember. Or that Hero copper steam engine toy could be modified to rotate a shaft to drive a series of piston pumps. But wasteful, yes.
Didn't Rome trade with the Persians? They should be able to buy rice farmers on the slave market, or offer land to farmers willing to move to Roman areas.
That's why the solar power concentrators in the 1800s were so big for the power they produced. Read 'The Golden Thread' if you can find it. Even with modern materials commercial solar steam installations are huge.
The Belgians were making, and using, Lewis guns at the start of the war. And a Hotchkiss light machine gun, benet-mercie(?). Plenty of pics show Germans using captured units.
They had a gunpowder shortage the whole war, too, so there's another project. They still would have lost with more industry, but the longer the war drags on the more manpower losses.