Ancient sources describe Pellana as the residence of Tyndareos — father of Helen and the Dioscuri — during the period when he was expelled from Sparta. Whether or not the mythological genealogy holds, the strategic logic is clear: Pellana commanded the northern approach to Laconia along the Eurotas, just as Sellasia commanded the approach along the Oenus River to the east. Polybius, writing in the second century BC, lists Pellana as one of the three cities of the Laconian Tripolis, along with Carystus (or Aegys) and Belemina. By the time Pausanias came through, it had shrunk to a settlement notable only for a temple of Asclepius and two fountains called Pellanis and Lanceia. Below the town was a structure known as the Characoma — a wall or fortification in the narrow part of the valley. Near the town was a ditch marking, according to the law of Agis, the boundary between the lots of Spartan citizens and those of the perioeci.

Archaeologist Theodore Spyropoulos argued that Pellana was the Mycenaean capital of Laconia — a claim that, if accepted, would place the seat of the Laconian Bronze Age world not at Sparta proper but here, in the hills above the upper Eurotas. The modern village sits 27 kilometers north of Sparta at 355 meters above sea level on a hill extending from the Taygetos range. Some scholars further connect the Pellana area with Homeric Lacedaemon — the kingdom of Menelaus — based on the concentration of Bronze Age remains in the upper valley. The Wikipedia article on Pellana is careful to note that the modern village's site was occupied in antiquity but is probably not the exact site of the ancient Pellana mentioned by Pausanias and others; the ancient city was more likely near modern Sellasia. The claim is debated, not settled. But tholos tombs and Mycenaean remains in the area are real, and the geography — a defensible hill above a river valley on the main route between Arcadia and Sparta — is exactly what a Bronze Age capital would require.

What survives at Pellana is modest but tangible. On the left bank of the Eurotas, at a place nineteenth-century scholars identified with the site, the riverbank is supported for about 200 yards by a Hellenic retaining wall. The mountain above, known as Mount Burlia, has two peaked summits, each capped by a small chapel — likely built over or near ancient remains that the chapels' presence has prevented from being excavated thoroughly. Ancient scholars measured distances in stadia: Pausanias says Pellana was 100 stadia from Belemina and the site now identified as it is 55 stadia from Sparta. Springs still issue from the foot of the rocks, and traces of an ancient aqueduct suggest the fountains once served the city below — or perhaps supplied water all the way to Sparta itself. The folk etymology of the name — a woman named Pellania who slipped while fetching water and fell into the stream — is the kind of story that tends to attach to springs.

Pellana is at 37.206°N, 22.322°E, on a hill 27 kilometers north of Sparta and 5 kilometers west of the main Sparta-Tripoli road. The upper Eurotas valley narrows noticeably here compared to the broad plain around Sparta and Kladas to the south. Taygetos presses close on the western side; the river bends through a tighter corridor. From altitude, the strategic importance of this position is immediately legible: any army moving south from Arcadia would have to pass through or around this chokepoint. The nearest airport is LGKL (Kalamata International), approximately 60 kilometers to the west. A low-altitude approach from the north along the Eurotas brings the hill of Pellana into view before the valley widens toward modern Sparta.