Jam non Ionios esse, sed Hionios.
On the other hand Quintilian seems disposed to smile at the excess of ‘culture’ which drops its h’s, to class this with other affected ‘niceties’ of speech, and to regard the whole matter as of slight importance:
[Quint. I. vi. 21, 22.] Multum enim litteratus, qui sine aspiratione et producta secunda syllaba salutarit (avere est enim), et calefacere dixerit potius quam quod dicimus, et conservavisse; his adjiciat face et dice et similia. Recta est haec via, quis negat? sed adjacet mollior et magis trita.
Cicero confesses that he himself changed his practice in regard to the aspirate. He had been accustomed to sound it only with vowels, and to follow the fathers, who never used it with a consonant; but at length, yielding to the importunity of his ear, he conceded the right of usage to the people, and ‘kept his learning to himself.’
[Cic. Or. XLVIII. 160.] Quin ego ipse, cum scirem ita majores locutos esse ut nusquam nisi in vocali aspiratione uterentur, loquebar sic, ut pulcros, cetegus, triumpos, Kartaginem, dicerem; aliquando, idque sero, convicio aurium cum extorta mihi veritas, usum loquendi populo concessi, scientiam mihi reservavi.
Gellius speaks of the ancients as having employed the h merely to add a certain force and life to the word, in imitation of the Attic tongue, and enumerates some of these words. Thus, he says, they said lachrymas; thus, sepulchrum, aheneum, vehemens, inchoare, helvari, hallucinari, honera, honustum.
[Gellius II. iii.] In his enim verbis omnibus litterae, seu spiritus istius nulla ratio visa est, nisi ut firmitas et vigor vocis, quasi quibusdam nervis additis, intenderetur.
And he tells an interesting anecdote about a manuscript of Vergil:
Sed quoniam aheni quoque exemplo usi sumus, venit nobis in memoriam, fidum optatumque, multi nominis Romae, grammaticum ostendisse mihi librum Aeneidos secundum mirandae vetustatis, emptum in Sigillariis XX. aureis, quem ipsius Vergilii fuisse credebat; in quo duo isti versus cum ita scripti forent:
“Vestibulum ante ipsum, primoque in limine, Pyrrhus: