After the Roman conquest in many Hellenic cities the local aristocracy kept its social position, but had very restricted political power and was not fully incorporated into the corresponding Roman class. This was a situation partly caused by the maintenance and continuity of Hellenic cultural traditions which, so far from being overshadowed by Roman ones, had deep influence on them. The Roman aristocrats, indeed, recognized the principles of Hellenic culture and welcomed them, in particular the values cultivated by Hellenic education. The adoption of the Hellenic language is an indication of this encounter.

There were of course cases, such as that of Berrhoea, where one section of the local aristocracy was supplanted after the city turned into a Roman colony. While it was initially the Romans who held the upper political and religious posts at Berrhoea, gradually a new aristocratic class, the "New Romans", was formed. This class was a heterogeneous one, being made up of people of different nationalies and social position, and the number of its members was continuously on the increase. It is thus clear that in certain societies in Hellenic cities there was predominantly a slackening in the discrimination between Romans who had settled in them and the native inhabitants.

Inscriptional evidence from Sparta allows us to get an outline of the local aristocracy in Roman times. Sparta's upper social class was composed not only of Romans but of members of the local aristocracy. It was no homogeneous body, as the inequalities of wealth among its members shows. Leaving economic condition aside, there was of course one other criterion for a Spartan's belonging to the well-to-do class, which held most of the posts, and that was "noble" descent. The elitism that descent exuded was reinforced by the reaction of the Roman aristocracy, which was impressed by it in the course of the social relations it developed with the locals. A typical episode involved the nameless descendant of Brasidas freed from jail by Augustus when he learnt of his descent. Yet one more source of authority for the Spartan aristocratic class was the relations of these families with Rome. Sparta's privileged treatment of isolated individuals or whole families was summed up in the grant of Roman citizenship. Thus there were cases where even the emperor himself granted this right, as Augustus did to the family of Paulus Aelius, for their athletic prowess.

Generally speaking, Sparta's social structure was no different from that of other Hellenic cities under Roman rule. A class of well-to-do landowners enjoyed official Roman backing, and at its head was a numerically small aristocratic elite.