The spread of Jews in significant numbers around the Mediterranean, on the other hand, had followed Alexander the Great's conquest of the east, and was consolidated under Greek and then Roman sovereignty. Major Jewish settlements were located in the cities of the Roman provinces of Asia, in Greece and in Egypt. Jewish identities in the ancient Mediterranean varied widely, as might be expected. In the sphere of material culture, burial practices and funerary epigraphy shed light on the Jews' adaptation to their varied diaspora environments. Jews normally adopted the burial patterns and epitaph types used in the wider society. The essence of diaspora circumstances lies in powerlessness more than in power and might always turn to acrimony. This was surely the lesson learnt by Mediterranean Jewry through the half millennium which authors have surveyed of their existence in dispersion. The early Christian communities shared many of the same experiences; they brought to bear on them both old techniques and new.