What did medieval educated people think about the Roman and Greek republics?

by The_Manchurian

With the glorification of Rome, especially during the Renaissance, I wondered how the people of the later Middle Ages (mostly ruled by Kings) viewed the fact that these societies had no Kings (and in fact, Romans disliked Kings a lot). Or was this not something that even the educated people of the later Middle Ages really knew about?

Realtrain

Follow up: what did people during that time think when they saw Roman/Greek ruins? Sis they understand that there was a great civilization before then?