Rome's Republic ran on a fuel it could not safely burn forever: personal glory

Holland describes a political culture in which Roman aristocrats measured their entire worth by public honors — military triumphs, elected offices, statues, the esteem of fellow citizens. This wasn't incidental to Roman politics; it was the engine of it, driving generals to conquer new territory and politicians to outdo their ancestors' achievements just to remain socially legitimate.

The problem was structural: glory is inherently scarce and comparative, so each generation's leading men had to reach further than the last to claim equivalent status, since matching a forebear's achievements wasn't good enough — you had to exceed them. This created a ratchet effect, where the stakes of political competition escalated relentlessly over generations.

A system this dependent on individual overachievement was always going to eventually produce men whose ambitions outgrew the Republic's checks. A political culture built entirely on competitive glory-seeking is, by its own logic, unstable in the long run — someone was always going to overreach the system that rewarded overreaching.