setting idea.

>>54468241
It's a romantic image but the library was in decline for a long time before the events that might have destroyed it. So, it would probably not change anything.

>>54468545
This

It's a romantic idea that such a bastion of knowledge was destroyed by a bunch of rampaging barbarians and what could have been were it not for its loss

But it really wasn't as bad as it's been romanticized to be

>>54468241
What if Alexander never died?

File: classic sad pepe.png (180KB, 582x562px) Image search: [Google]

180KB, 582x562px

What if this thread had never been made? Sadly, we will never know.

>>54469615
Then nobody would care who Methuselah was.

>>54468241
Then Caesar would die and woah you're right that's pretty interesting.

>>54469615
>What if Alexander never died?
What if all generals did that? There becomes a point where you've commanded so many men and hold so much respect that you transcend mortality. Alexander never dies- but neither does Genghis Khan. Stonewall Jackson and General Lee submit to an uneasy peace treaty, but Sherman and Ulysses are still chomping at the bit. Yamamoto holds Japan in an iron grip, while Hannibal and Caesar control the trade within the Mediterranean in an iron grip.

>>54469713
>Stonewall Jackson and General Lee
>Sherman and Ulysses
>Yamamoto
These aren't even approaching the same level as Hannibal, Chingiz, Alexander and Caesar. Please, do not dilute our Great Men with your Wimpy Poofters.

>>54469615
Then he, Pythagoras, and Simon Magus would form a trinitarian mystery cult that would replace Christianity with a religion that focused on magic, science, and using both to conquer the universe.

>>54468545
Also, there's not a singular burning, and no worthwhile evidence of a deliberate burning.

Fires were just hazards of libraries in the classical era, due to the combination of lamps and paper everywhere.

>>54469668
What if all dumb frogposters were aborted as they should have been? Sadly, we may never know.

>>54468589
>>54469852
>>54468545

ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE AND SO ENLIGHTENED THROUGHOUT ITS HISTORY EVERYONE

>>54470400
Uh...
Okay?

>>54468241
What does a pink fat chick in cosplay have to do with the LoA?

>>54470278
Somebody needs to tell the frogposters that drinking bleach is super edgy and insightful.

File: 229cf1aa458392183fc324e09fb09f52.jpg (112KB, 463x307px) Image search: [Google]

112KB, 463x307px

>>54468545
>>54468589
>>54469852
Entirely fair.
So, let's run with the premise as folklore would have it - what if the Library was an important repository of information that would otherwise be lost, and The Burning (pick one of the many, and we'll just treat that as the only one for purpose of thought experiment) is prevented. What kind of effects on Near East (if nothing else) do we get?

>>54468241
>over-muscled, overweight, hideously proportioned-like-a-winter-bear warrior woman might be related

What kind of future do you envision had the library at Alexandria been saved?

>>54470400
You know, usually when I point this out, I'm accused of being a christian apologist, so this is a new one.

>>54469745
I'd argued that they're on the same level when it comes to cultural significance. Personally I'd add Shaka Zulu and Charles Martell to the list, if only because it helps add flavor to the setting. Otherwise you're stuck with a limited cast of European and Mongolian/Chinese characters by simple virtue of those areas having been populated by large civilizations the longest.

>>54470400
Could (you) not?

>>54470400
>center of knowledge destroyed
>THOSE DAMN MOHAMETTANS U GUYS!!
>yeah, damn that St Cyril, Christian Bishop of Alexandria from 200 years before Islam existed

>>54468241


Marc Anthony gave Cleopatra the contents of the second largest library in the ancient world, the Library of Pergamon, as a wedding gift to be housed in Alexandria.

Who knew putting the sum of all knowledge in the Hellenic world in one place could end so badly...

If the library survived we could have so much more of what was lost.

The groundbreaking writings of Pyrrhos of Epirus' book on strategy (lost).

The Oxyrynchus Historian (we have no idea who wrote it, but it is a required source for the late Peloponessian Wars as Xenophon is rather biased and concentrates on Sparta)

The entire Athenian Constitution (we have a part of it)

The plays of Sophocles

Works on Mathematics and engineering.

Tacitus full works on the early Emperors (the section on Caligula is missing).

Many other lost histories.

Manuals on the Antikythera mechanism, how the Automatons of Rhodes worked (if they existed) and detailed work on the early steam engine, the Aeliopile and its usage.

There is so much that humanity has lost that we do not even know what much of the knowledge we lost was. Names that have no meaning and titles that are all that remain of literature of an entire age.

We have the barest shadow of information on what was there and only the scraps of what had survived.