This paper explores how associations of Roman citizens claimed status, legitimacy, and authority in non-Roman communities between the late second century BCE and the late third century CE. Focusing on diverse contexts from across the empire, it argues that associations of Roman citizens employed mechanisms of self-differentiation through interactions with non-Roman entities that were attuned to local particularities as well as Roman state activity. In several cases, their wealth and power propelled them into divergent, uncategorizable forms of local power, blurring the traditional dichotomy of state and non-state actors, and that of colonizer and colonized.