Richard Saller defines patronage by three features (summarized by Griffin): “(1) it involves the reciprocal exchange of goods and services; (2) that it is a personal relationship of some duration; (3) that it is asymmetrical, in the sense that the two parties are of unequal status and offer different kinds of goods and services in the exchange.” Saller argues that even “amicus, beneficium, officium, meritum and gratia can be used as signs of reciprocal exchange relationships, if the additional qualification of inequality of status is met, can be used as evidence of patronage.”

As A. Wallace-Hadrill suggests admits that “there is a contrast between the friendship of social equals and the dependent relationship of unequals,” but argues that “what justifies describing the network as a whole as a patronage network is that it involves exchanges between those closer to the centre of power and those more distant from it and has the effect of mediating state resources through personal relationships.”