this thing is five years old

[Serenus]

We all know, or should, the idiom for saying a person is X years old: puella illa quinque annos nata est.

But how do you express this for things, such as "this lexicon is 20 years old"? Is such a construction attested at all? Can you use the same construction, namely lexicon hoc viginti annos vetus est?

 

[rothbard]

Liber scriptus anno abhinc septimo decimo?

 

[Iáson]

Liber scriptus anno abhinc septimo decimo?

I would have said that the accusative would be more idiomatic (scriptus septendecim abhinc annós). However, a quick look at Cicero does not provide much support for my intuition - there are 5 cases of accusative with abhinc as against 2 with the ablative. Nevertheless, when the ablative is used it looks like you use the plural (scriptus septendecim abhinc annís) and a (cardinal?) number.

 

[Iáson]

It is interesting that abhinc is fairly rare though - look at the frequency count! Maybe one could use ante?

With ablative:
"annó ante" 7 occurrences in Cicero, but none of them have any accompanying numbers and they all mean 'on the preceding year'.
"ante annó" 1 occurrence, 'millésimó ante annó'.

With accusative:
"ante annós" 0 occurrences in Cicero.
"annós ante" 0 occurrences in Cicero.

I feel like there must be a common, idiomatic way of expressing this, that I just can't think of right now.

 

[Dantius]

"annis ante", however, is fairly common (40 results. "ante annis" has 24). That's just a bit more frequent than "abhinc".

 

[Iáson]

Aha. I should have thought of that. "ante annís" isn't bad either. I think this looks like the best idiom, at this rate.

 

[Iáson]

Hmm.
"ante annís": 7 occurrences, always with multís, paucís, or aliquot, in Cicero.
"annís ante": 16 occurrences, with multís etc. and with a number, in Cicero.

"ante annís": 3 occurrences, always paucís ante annís, in Caesar.
"annís ante": 1 occurrence (paucís annís ante) in Caesar.
None of the others ("annó ante" "ante annó" "ante annós" "annós ante" or "abhinc").

 

[Iáson]

"ante annís": 8 occurrences in Livy.
"annís ante": 7 occurrences in Livy.
"annó ante": 2 times in Livy, once 'on the year before' and once with 'tertió... annó ante'
"ante annós" 4 occurrences, although one 'before their time', ie. prematurely.
None of the others ("ante annó", "annós ante", "abhinc").

Sorry, I think I'm getting too excited about this.