CB: One aspect I can see as continuing "on its own" from ancients to the modern bourgeois era is language. European mass, spoken languages have lots of Greek and Roman word roots.
European literature uses lots of Greek and Roman myths and literature as its basis. But literati are intellectuals, and the ideas they push are part of the "ruling ideas" of the epoch ; and the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling classes. So , the bourgeoisie in idealizing Greeks and Romans probably directed their literati to imitate Greeks and Romans. As I think of it, maybe the bourgeois ruling class even shaped the saturation of modern European mass, spoken languages with Greek and Roman roots.