There's a meme on TikTok that men think about the Roman Empire five times a day or some such thing. I can't speak for other men, but in my case that seems a bit high. I probably only think the about the Roman Empire a few times a week.
Roman history feels to me like a soap opera with about a thousand characters, and I can never keep track of who's who. Since the story is largely one of those characters relationships with one another, and with non-roman friends and foes who doesn't quite map onto any modern groups. As a result, their history reads like "[Emperor] allied with [barbarian group] to defeat [other barbarian group]. When they were defeated gave lands to [favorite 1], and built [famous structure that I'm not familiar with] to commemorate the triumph."
My ability to follow the story was also probably hampered by the fact that I listened to this as an audiobook while doing other stuff. I would tune out for a few minutes and then hear the narrator talking about Flavius and imagine Flava Flav commanding legions.
This book is probably pretty good - it didn't really hold my attention, but I think that's more on me than the author.