[1] Likewise or similarly in other lexica. The headword is accusative plural of the noun
a)kesth/s, evidently quoted from somewhere but not independently attested.
Both
a)kesth/s and
a)ke/stwr, and their derivatives, are used in some writers as simple synonyms for other words for 'doctor' and 'healing': Apollonius Rhodius,
Argonautica 2.512 (and
scholia thereto), Corpus Hippocraticum,
De flatibus 1.8,
Lycophron Alexandra 1050, some ecclesiastical writers, incl. St. Basil, and the poems of the
Greek Anthology. Akestor is once used as an epithet for Phoebus Apollo (
Euripides,
Andromache 900) and is a reasonably common personal name for a tragic playwright also called Sakas (see
sigma 33, from whom the recurrent character in comedy may be drawn), for an artist, a historian and a couple of mythological characters. In a little-noticed note Joannes
Philoponus the grammaticus (
De vocabulis quae diversam significationem exhibent 149.8) distinguishes the accentuation of
a)kesth/s 'doctor' from that of
a)ke/sths 'stitcher, tailor', as it is used by
Xenophon (
Cyropaedia 1.6.16) and others. See
alpha 856.