Venus Calva means ‘Bald Venus’, perhaps to also be understood as ‘Venus of the Bald Women’. It was an epithet said to have been given to Her in very ancient times.

When the Senone Gauls under Brennus attacked and besieged Rome in 390BCE, most people fled; but some, including the senators and their families, holed themselves up on the Capitoline Hill with weapons and supplies. The matrons there, wanting to help, donated their hair to be used to make bowstrings to help fend off the Gauls. (And yes, it is entirely possible to make quite good bowstrings out of human hair.) In time the Gauls found a way up the steep Capitoline Hill, and began to climb it; but the geese kept in the temple of Juno starting squawking, alerting the Romans to their plan. After the siege (and sack) was over, the senate vowed a temple to Venus Calva to honor the matrons for the sacrifice of their hair.

Another explanation for Venus coming to be associated with baldness is that in the time of Ancus Marcius (the legendary fourth King of Rome, who legendarily ruled in the 7th century BCE), a plague came to Rome that caused the women (and, one assumes, the men too) to lose their hair. One of the women so afflicted was the Queen of Rome, the wife of Ancus Marcius; given that plagues were generally regarded as some kind of punishment from the Gods, and that the Queen herself was unwell, the unaffected women of Rome sacrificed their own hair to Venus in the hopes of appeasing Her and averting the plague. In this version Ancus Marcius builds the temple to Venus Calva on the Capitoline in thanks.

There is one more version of why Venus Calva got Her name: that in the time of Ancus Marcius a statue of the Queen was dedicated to Venus on the Capitoline Hill as an offering to stop the plague. When the plague abated, and the women got their hair back, the statue was honored as Venus Herself.

At any rate, there’s no evidence of such a temple ever being built, though to be fair, the site of the Capitoline Hill has been built upon over and over again through the years and little from ancient days is left.

All these legends take place in days long past, to the time before Venus was assimilated to the Greek love Goddess Aphrodite; however, the surviving accounts were written down much later, so who knows. Venus has Her origins in a Goddess of gardens, both flower and vegetable ones, which doesn’t sound like it has much to do with the great Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty. But as a garden Goddess, it would make sense for Venus to have the power to make plants flourish with luxurious growth. Perhaps that power might extend to the luxurious (re) growth of hair, too. At any rate, it’s possible that Venus Calva’s association with restoring long, healthy, beautiful hair might have influenced the later connection with Aphrodite.