Akest is a variant of the name Egestes, used by Virgil, the hero of legends associated with the emergence of the city of Egesta (Segesta). According to the version set forth by the poet Lycophron, Egestus was the son of the Trojan woman Egesta, who was appointed as a sacrifice to the sea monster instead of Hesione, the daughter of the Trojan king Laomedon. Rescued by Aphrodite, Egesta and her two sisters ended up in Sicily, where the river god Krimis (Krinis), who took the form of a dog, became her husband.
Servius also mentions a Trojan girl destined to feed a sea monster, but saved in Sicily. In Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Egestus is a Trojan who rebelled against King Laomedon, for which he and his young daughter were sentenced to death, but escaped to Sicily. There his daughter got married and gave birth to a son, Egestus, who adopted the language and customs of the country, which did not stop him from going to his grandfather’s homeland to save besieged Troy. Upon returning to Sicily, he founded a city named after him. Virgil omits these details. His Acestes, the son of the Sicilian river god Crinis and a Trojan woman, whose name he does not reveal, differs from other heroes in his age and the skin of a Libyan bear on his shoulders.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru