greek ancient its a myth or not ?

from the greek-photos blog  at http://online-greek-photos.blogspot.com/ 

 Roman name Venus. See The Olympians for more information and another picture; also this picture.

Aphrodite was the goddess of love. The Romans called her Venus (hence
the famous armless statue known as the Venus de Milo). Aphrodite lived
on Mount Olympus with the other supreme deities and was married to the
homely craftsman-god, Hephaestus. She was said to have been born from
the foam of the sea (hence Botticelli's much-reproduced painting of the
goddess floating on a seashell).

Aphrodite involved herself on
several noteworthy occasions with the affairs of mortal heroes. When
Jason asked permission of the king of Colchis to remove the Golden
Fleece from the grove in which it hung, the king was clearly unwilling.
So the goddess Hera, who sponsored Jason's quest, asked Aphrodite to
intervene. The love goddess made the king's daughter Medea fall in love
with Jason, and Medea proved instrumental in Jason's success.

Aphrodite
can also be said to have caused the Trojan War. This came about in the
following fashion. When the hero Peleus was married to the sea-nymph
Thetis, all the gods were invited to the ceremony -- all but one that
is. The slighted goddess happened to a specialist in sowing discord, so
she maliciously deposited a golden apple on the banquet table. The
fruit was inscribed with the legend, "For the fairest". Immediately all
the goddesses began to argue about whose beauty entitled her to be the
rightful possesor of this prize.

Finally it was decided to put
the dispute to arbitration. Reasonably enough, the designated judge was
to be the most handsome mortal in the world. This turned out to be a
noble Trojan youth named Paris, who was serving as a shepherd at the
time. So the three finalists -- Aphrodite, Hera and Athena -- sought
him out in the meadow where he was tending his flocks.

Not
content to leave the outcome to the judge's discernment, the three
goddesses proceeded to offer bribes. Hera, Queen of Olympus, took Paris
aside and told him she would help him rule the world. Athena, goddess
of war, said she would make him victorious in battle. Aphrodite sized
Paris up and decided he would be more impressed with the guaranteed
love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This was Helen, who
happened to be married to the king of Sparta.

Paris promptly
awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite, who in turn enabled him to elope
with Helen, who thenceforth became notorious as Helen of Troy. Helen's
husband and his brother raised a Greek army to retrieve his wife, and
this was the inception of the Trojan War.

Another occasion in
which the goddess of love came to the aid of a mortal hero also
happened to involve golden apples. When the mighty heroine Atalanta
agreed to wed whatever suitor managed to best her in a foot race,
Aphrodite favored one of the contestants with a peck of golden fruit.
By strewing these enchanted apples on the race course, the young lad
caused Atalanta to become distracted and she lost the race.