Aurelian had decided that in the future the Roman citizens would also receive free wine and pork from the state in addition to bread and other foodstuffs.
This suggests that the temple must have stood in the immediate vicinity of the Castra Urbana built by Aurelian and the Forum Suarium (the wine market), and this location coincides with where the church of San Silvestro in Capite is currently situated.
It was the fourth temple dedicated to the Sun in Rome – the other three were in the Circus Maximus, on the Quirinal Hill and in Trastevere.
Andrea Palladio in the 16th century (he visited Rome three times in the 1540s) drew the remains of a large complex east of the via Lata, which the German historian Christian Hülsen attributed to the Temple of the Sun.
In the centre of this space was a tholos or circular building, some 25 metres across (from the lowest of the three steps), presumed to have been the temple.