The University Museum's classical collections are among the largest, most diverse, and most systematically collected of those of any museum in the United States. Of particular importance is the Etruscan material, spanning the entire history of the Etruscan peoples, from the ninth to the second centuries B.C. The strengths of the Roman collection are its glass, coins, sculpture, and the excavated objects from the Italian sites of Colonia Minturnae and the Sanctuary of Diana at Nemi.

The Guide covers religion, daily life, language, commerce and trade, and death and burial among the Etruscans and Romans, and the legacy of the classical world in Western culture. It celebrates the completion of a suite of galleries at the University Museum-Worlds Intertwined: Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans-and is a companion guide to The Ancient Greek World (1995).