In the year 64 was the great fire in Rome.

Question

In the year 64 was the great fire in Rome. It burned wooden tenement houses, which were as high as six stories, and it burned the home of the wealthy, including Nero's palace.[Julio-Claudians: Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch20.htm]I'd like to know if a subject and a verb can be inverted when a time adverbial phrase is fronted.Thank you in advance for your help.

GPY · Accepted Answer

Only in certain cases:

After the storm came the calm.
Only now can we see the effects.

Often it is not possible:

* Yesterday went I to the beach.
* At six o'clock had we dinner.

(Edit: Actually, these may not be a fair examples since normally the auxiliary "do" would be inserted, so we should probably be looking at Yesterday did I go to the beach and At six o'clock did we have dinner, but neither of these would be used in ordinary modern English either.)

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, GPY, for your very elaborate and helpful answer.

How about my example and the following.
1. In the year 64 was the great fire in Rome
2. Yesterday was I at the beach.
3. At six o'clock was prepared the dinner.

GPY · Answer

1. OK.
2. No.
3. No (sounds archaic or poetic, but not viable in ordinary modern English).

GPY · Answer

park sang joonThank you, GPY, for your very elaborate and helpful answer.

By the way, just so you know, there is no need to always try to think of adjectives like "elaborate" to insert into these sentences. Often you use them in a slightly inappropriate way. Actually, my reply was not really "elaborate", and, also, the word "elaborate" does not necessarily come across as a wholehearted endorsement.

In the year 64 was the great fire in Rome.

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