After raising a mercenary force he took command of the citizen army and defeated the first opponents of Greek freedom, the Boeotians, Macedonians and Euboeans, together with their other allies, in battle in Boeotia.

Thence he advanced to PylaeIn fact Leosthenes seems to have occupied Thermopylae before his victory in Boeotia. and occupied the pass through which, in bygone days as well, barbarians marched against the Greeks. He thus prevented the inroad of Antipater into Greece, and overtaking him in that vicinity, defeated him in battle and shut him into Lamia, which he then besieged.

The Thessalians, Phocians, Aetolians, and all the other peoples of the region, he made his allies, bringing under his control, by their own consent, the men whom Philip and Alexander gloried in controlling against their wish. The circumstances subject to his will he mastered, but fate he could not overpower.