[NB   The brief explanation given below has been drafted on the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the basic building-blocks used in Celtic topographical place-names (Chapter 1 of the Home menu), with the structure of compound place-names (Chapter 2) and with the structure of Celtic river-names (Chapter 19)]

This tribe is referred to by Tacitus in his Agricola 38, but apparently in no other ancient source.

The tribal name is based on the Celtic topographical place-name Vorestion, which comprises the inversion-type element vor, meaning ‘slope of hill’, qualified by the earlier inversion-type element st meaning ‘hill high’. The form Boresti given by Tacitus shows the common v→b change. The initial Vor of Vorestion appears to have survived in the name Forfar, the modern county town of Angus, and the topography of Forfar is correct for the name Vorestion, this suggesting that the tribal centre of the Boresti was in fact at Forfar.

[This page was last modified on 08 April 2021]