The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is usually told as a single catastrophe, but historians now describe something slower and sadder: a decline stretched over centuries. The library's collection depended on continuous copying, since papyrus scrolls decay within decades in the Mediterranean climate. Copying required funding, and funding required rulers who valued scholarship. As royal patronage waned, fewer scrolls were recopied, and the collection thinned long before any fire touched it. The lesson historians draw is uncomfortable in a digital age: information does not survive by being stored; it survives by being continuously maintained.