  We introduce a presentation of the Chow ring of a matroid by a new set of
generators, called "simplicial generators." These generators are analogous to
nef divisors on projective toric varieties, and admit a combinatorial
interpretation via the theory of matroid quotients. Using this combinatorial
interpretation, we (i) produce a bijection between a monomial basis of the Chow
ring and a relative generalization of Schubert matroids, (ii) recover the
Poincar\'e duality property, (iii) give a formula for the volume polynomial,
which we show is log-concave in the positive orthant, and (iv) recover the
validity of Hodge-Riemann relations in degree 1, which is the part of the Hodge
theory of matroids that currently accounts for all combinatorial applications
of [AHK18]. Our work avoids the use of "flips," the key technical tool employed
in [AHK18].
