AVENTINE LOCATION OF  THE  
TEMPLE OF CERES, LIBER, AND LIBERA
 
    Since the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera has not yet been located definitively, its exact location is still in dispute.  Many scholars agree that the approximate location of the temple can be recovered from literary evidence.  Vitruvius (3.3.5), Pliny (HN 35.154) and Tacitus (Ann. 2.49) all report that the temple was located "near the Circus Maximus" (ad Circum Maximum).  Furthermore, Tacitus notes that this temple was in the vicinity of the Temple of Flora, which has been located on the north slope of the Aventine, at the beginning of the Clivus Publicius.  Livy (40.2.1-2) informs us that the door of the Temple of Luna on the Aventine (in Aventino) was blown off and landed against the back wall of the Temple of Ceres.  These passages all suggest that the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera was located on the north slope of the Aventine Hill.

    A passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus provides further information that more closely pinpoints the temple's location:

Cassius, the other consul, having been left in Rome, in the meantime dedicated the Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera, which is after the turning points of the greatest of the hippodromes (the Circus Maximus), lying above the starting posts themselves.
The "turning points" are the goals at either end of the spinathat divided the arena of the Circus Maximus in two.  The charioteers had to turn at these goalposts during the race in order to head down the other side of the Circus. Thus, Dionysius' phrase "after the turning points" indicates the temple lay near either the western or eastern end of the Circus Maximus.  He indicates the western end by specifying that the temple lay above the starting posts.  These posts, where the charioteers began the race, were at the western end of the Circus.  Furthermore, the word "above" suggests that the temple was on the hill overlooking these starting posts, that is, the lower part of the northern slope of the Aventine.

Other scholars have argued that the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera was located in the Forum Boarium, but there are considerable problems with this identification.

Source:  Barbette Stanley Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (Austin, Texas:  University of Texas Press 1996) 82-83.