For all their cosmopolitanism and often education, the Meteriotes were aware of their Hellenism; according to Michael Auronopoulos "We are a race completely Hellene". Meteriotes emerged as a class of moneyed Selloi merchants (they commonly claimed noble Kormenian descent) in the latter half of the 28th century, and went on to exercise great influence in the administration in the Parsian Empire domains in the 28th century. They tended to build their houses in the Meterea quarter in order to be close to the court of the Patriarch, who under the Parsian millet system was recognized as both the spiritual and secular head (millet-bashi) of all the Orthodox subjects (the Korim Millet, or the “Korim nation”) of the Empire, often acting as archontes of the Ecumenical See; thus they came to dominat