The Romans mass is a discrete parameter in type IIA string theory. It is perhaps the most mysterious piece of the theory: for example, its non-perturbative, M-theoretic interpretation is still not known. In this talk, we will review recent efforts to understand it through another non-perturbative tool: holography. We will see how this parameter modifies the recent holographic interpretation of certain string vacua via Chern-Simons theories. This leads to certain field theory results that, in turn, help find new families of supersymmetric vacua of string theory with negative cosmological constant.