3.75 stars, including my scholarly notes:

SPQR is broken up by topics rather than chronology, which made it easy to pick up and put down as I had time, but also impeded my ability to create a coherent image of when things where happening. The Roman Empire was around for a long ass time, my dudes. Everitt does also provide an abbreviated timeline at the end, but ain't nobody got time for flip-flopping back and forth.