Sure. But that was largely due to the constraints on the rate of growth prior to the industrial revolution. Capitalism was still functionally exigent, it was just operating under a rate of growth capped by the surplus human and animal labor could produce.

The advent of transatlantic travel (wind power) and the waterwheel and eventually steam power and modern fertilizers was what caused human productivity to spike. Suddenly, you could see returns on investment at double or even triple digits within decades. Prior eras saw single digit growth in even the wealthiest countries on Earth. Wealth was accumulated at a glacial pace.

Piketty’s “Capitalism in the 21st Century” covers this in depth.

Rome was a power center for over a millennia in large part because of the enormous consolidation of investment capital within the city limits. The Republic-cum-Empire took in revenues, built capital, expanded its economy, and then consumed the expanded economic output as revenue. But that took centuries to accumulate. None of Rome’s neighbors ever had the surplus necessary to invest or the time to expand like the Romans did. London managed a similar scale of development in decades. And then it burned down. And then it was rebuilt a few decades later.

You can argue that the desire to rapidly accumulate wealth is a facet of human nature. You can also argue that the rate of accumulation only became notable in the last 400 years, such that “capitalism” as a productive force wasn’t relevant until recently. But you can’t argue that cumulative gains were somehow unknown to anyone prior to the Dutch East India company.