How do 'people' excluded from political institutions achieve political agency? Revisiting a series of seemingly marginal events, Martin Breaugh identifies fleeting yet decisive instances of emancipation in which the people took it upon themselves to become political subjects. Emerging during the Roman plebs's first secession in 494 BCE, the 'plebian' experience consists of an 'underground' or unexplored configuration of political strategies to obtain political freedom through a practice of politics that rejects domination and, by means of concerted action, establishes an alternative form of power.