[UPDATED] Amazing Ancient Sculptures And Frescoes

Went to another museum that is off the beaten path on Wednesday.  The Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo alle Terme is not geographically far afield.  It's just that it's in a relatively unappealing part of Roma -- right near the Termini train station.  Because of that, almost nobody goes there.  But that's a mistake; if you like sculptures and frescoes from the ancient Roman period, this museum is excellent.

My favorite part of the museum is definitely the sculptures on the first and second floors.  There are tons of them.

There were a handful that were most impressive and that are considered the most artistically significant.  Because the museum was pretty empty, because they allow you to take pictures, and because there are no barriers whatsoever between you and the works, you can get close up and personal for photos of these ancient masterpieces.  My faves:

The Boxer, from the 1st century BC

An incredibly detailed and dramatic sarcophagus 

The Discus Thrower.  Graceful perfection.  

A crouching Aphrodite.  This came from Hadrian's Villa.  I'm sure you recall that Yonkel and I went there in late May.  

This is the famed Sleeping Hermaphrodite, from the 2nd century BC.  When I initially saw the statue from this angle, I wondered how they knew the person was a hermaphrodite.  But then I viewed the statue from the other side.  

From this angle, there is little doubt.  

Many people consider the third floor -- which is all frescoes and mosaics -- to be the show-stopping highlight of the museum.  I'm not in that camp.  Frescoes and mosaics (at least from this period) don't do it for me: too bland.  But I include here the roomful of perfectly-recovered frescoes that are perhaps the museum's top gem.  These are from the Villa Livia (one of the homes of Augustus' wife Livia Drusilla) and they date from around 30 BC to 20 BC.

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UPDATE:

You have to be responsive to your readership, si?  OK, well, in response to a commenter -- who is a big fan of mosaics and frescoes -- I'm adding here a couple more photos from the third floor of the Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo alle Terme.  These are some of the mosaics I liked most.  

I want to point out, once again, that these are from the ancient Roman period.  I've been seeing lots of mosaics during this anno sabatico.  They are all over the place in the churches and museums of Italia and there were lots too in Istanbul and Paris.  But, most of what I've been seeing is from much later on -- from the Middle Ages or from the latter half of the first millennium A.D.  The ones in this museum are from 2,000+ years ago!