Roman cooking spit

[Carlton Bach]

The only cooking spits I know from Roman contexts are relatively small metal skewers designed to be placed on a roasting grill, a lot like earlier greek oboloi. The technique works very well for small and medium-sized meat chunks and small whole critters.

I suspect most Roman cooks used grilles rather than spits. The square iron grille is a leitfossil of culinary romanitas in Western Europe, hardly a museum is without one.