The Museum's Classical collection consists of over five hundred objects. The most spectacular piece is an almost life-size marble statue of the Roman goddess Minerva. Minerva was the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena, goddess of war. Here she is portrayed as the goddess Victoria (the Latin word for victory). This statue may have been part of a religious dedication made after a military victory.

Other examples of stone sculpture include a stone lekythos used as a Greek tomb stone, two Roman sarcophagi, and a Roman copy of a Greek head of the goddess Aphrodite. In addition, the collection contains decorated pottery, an extensive jewelry collection, coins, lamps, glass vessels, bronze objects, and statuettes of bronze, clay, and ivory. These pieces are products of Greek, Roman, Cycladic, Mycenaean, Etruscan, and Cypriot cultures, ranging in date from about 2700 BC to the late Roman period (5th and 6th centuries AD). This important collection has recently been published in a well-illustrated catalog.

The Classical collection is exhibited in two galleries, Greek and Roman. The objects in the Greek gallery have been arranged to illustrate the religious beliefs of the ancient Greeks. One section of the exhibit, Greek Religion, focuses on Greek gods and goddesses, religious rituals, and on the well-known mythological hero, Herakles (the Roman Hercules). On the coin shown in the photo above, Herakles wears a lion-skin on his head, an allusion to one of his feats in which he killed a lion with his bare hands. Other sections of the gallery look at topics such as personal adornment, athletics, wine-drinking, and funerary beliefs, all with an emphasis on religious practices.

In the Roman gallery, objects are arranged to illustrate the diversity of religions that were present in the Roman empire, including traditional Roman religion, early Christianity, and the Roman adoption of Egyptian religion. For example, the lamp shown above is from Roman Egypt, and may have been used on the occasion of births, since the image of the frog recalls the Egyptian goddess of birth, Heqet.