Genealogy and the Gymnasium

This paper proposes a series of new quantitative and theoretical approaches to the “gymnasial” epikrisis (screening) declarations. It argues that the available evidence suggests a gymnasial class of several thousand adult males in Oxyrhynchus. Models of genealogical demography suggest that this class may not have suffered from the endogamous restrictions imposed upon it. The size of the gymnasial class suggests that its members had considerable ancestor duplication, but not enough to permit shared and verifiable descent from an original group of gymnasials. The paper concludes with a brief word about the high degree of significance gymnasials may have placed on family history and genealogical memory.