Well, while you are speaking of the Roman Empire, we have to consider that Roman history covers a more than 1,000 year period and generalizations cannot be made that pertain to the entire cultural record for starters.

As EB is concerned with the Age of Overseas Expansion and the Middle/Late Republic, we should keep our observations in this area, I think.

The Romans as a people were nothing if not sure of their superiority among other Oscan, Italic, and Hellenic peoples. Roman propaganda, poetry, letters, annals, and histories are replete with evidence of this. Roman culture was a culture of the state and advancment within the hierarchy of the state in service of Rome herself, and if one was not Roman he or she was practically worthless. Roman citizens had no misconceptions about their own social, moral, and physical prowess over other peoples that inhabited Italia and the rest of the Meditteranean, for that matter.

Latin rights communities "civitas sine suffragio" were granted some measure of inclusion into the Roman state, certainly. most notably Romes absorbtion of Campania led by Capua to share citizenship and manpower early on, but this was an exception not the rule. Even the other Latin communities had no great influence or social standing within Rome itself, and the other socii even less so. They were dominated by Rome out of fear of reprisal, but held no love for the Roman state. The Social War is just the boiling point of centuries of simmering grievances.

The other point I wanted to make in this thread, was that of the Allies in Rome's armies. You cannot underestimate the value of the socii in Rome's military expansion. Rome's ability to incorporate multiple ethnicities and military traditions into a coherent force willing to fight loyally for another state is one of the primary reason's for Rome's conquest of Italy which served as the springboard for its own power. Rome's military by itself was not very impressive as far as the Italic standards went, nor was its manpower any greater than some of the other great city-states of the period of the Italic conquest.