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The Death of Hypatia and the burning of the Library by Christian fanatics is one of the great tales of history. It's a powerful and poignant story, with well-tested messages on the dangers and tragedies of fanaticism and the destruction of human heritage.

Which makes me immediately suspicious about much of said story actually being true (or at least, that one episode single-handedly destroying the Library, to the point of the Library surviving to the present day had it not happened). It's too good of a story, by my own reckoning, to ever be an entirely honest snippet of history, which is always a messy and multifaceted thing. While the occasional fire did happen, which doubtlessly hurt the Library (Caesar's burning of it is generally held to have been an accident and could've been avoided without waggling history too much), it's more likely the Library was just knocked into a general downward trend by loss of funding, the leaving or even banishment by scholars and scrolls being transferred to places like Rome.

How might the Great Library of Alexandria, as an institution, have been able to maintain itself as it was at its height under the Ptolemaic Dynasty? Where could it have avoided hits to its position as a centre of literacy, and how might it have adapted to become more resilient? And how would it's survival impact history? Assuming Islam still rises and Egypt falls under the control of the Caliphs, how would the Library's continued existence impact the House of Wisdom, for example?
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