Vervena sits at 1,160 meters on the northern slopes of Mount Parnon, making it the highest settlement in its area. The views from its stone-built houses look north toward Tegea, 11 kilometers away, and beyond to the Arcadian plateau. Tripoli, the regional capital, is 22 kilometers to the northwest; the coast at Astros, 45 kilometers east. The altitude that makes Vervena strategically valuable — providing clear surveillance of the plain below — also makes it a difficult place to live year-round, and residents have long maintained second homes at lower elevations.

The area's recorded human presence goes back to the 2nd millennium BCE, beginning with stone tools found near a spring at a site called Petra. The goddess Artemis was worshipped here from at least the 9th century BCE, with a sanctuary at Panteleimon that accumulated cult offerings through the Hellenistic period. In the 6th century BCE, a fully marble Doric temple was built at that site — the Temple of Artemis Knakeatis — later excavated by the archaeologist Konstantinos Romaios.

The village appeared in Byzantine records by the 12th century CE, when it evidently flourished enough to build a church whose architectural elements were later incorporated into the 18th-century Church of Saint John the Forerunner. After a period of depopulation — possibly from epidemic — Vervena was resettled in the 17th century. A Venetian census recorded 91 families. By the 18th century, the village was prosperous enough to build multiple tower-houses and construct its Great Fountain, a marble structure with four continuously flowing spouts, completed in 1788.

The Ottoman garrison at Tripolitza understood the threat the Vervena camp posed. On the morning of May 18, 1821 — less than two months after the revolution began — Ottoman forces sent more than 6,000 soldiers under Mustafa Bey (also referred to as Kehaya Bey) to destroy the camp. The plan was coordinated: while the main force headed toward Vervena, separate units would neutralize two outposts at Doliana and Dragouni, each held by about 100 fighters, to prevent reinforcement.

The Dragouni outpost fell. But at Doliana, the Ottoman unit encountered Nikitaras — Nikitas Stamatelopoulos, who would become one of the revolution's most celebrated fighters — who had spent the night there by chance while traveling between Valtetsi and Argos. Learning of the Ottoman approach after he had already left the village, he turned back. He fortified himself and between 250 and 300 men in 13 houses and held on through the entire day, while the Ottomans burned surrounding buildings and besieged them.

Meanwhile, 500 Greek fighters from the Vervena camp intercepted the main Ottoman force at a crossroads called Stavros. They fought for three hours without being able to stop the larger Ottoman column. The Ottomans established themselves on the hill of Louvros above Vervena and raised their flag over the village. Then at noon, they attacked.

The Greek defenders of Vervena — entrenched in stone houses and improvised fortifications around the village — held off an Ottoman assault led by Rubi Bey. When the Ottomans charged with yataghans, the intensity of Greek fire from the stone walls drove them back to the Louvros hill with serious losses. But the Ottoman flag still flew above the village, visible to everyone fighting below.

A Maniot fighter from the Mavromichalis corps — his name unrecorded in the sources — decided to bring it down. He went up the hill, killed the flag bearer, and returned with the flag. The Ottomans sent another man to raise it. The Maniot killed him too. The flag came down a second time.

This was the turning point. The Greek defenders read it as an omen, poured out of their houses and fortifications, and charged. The women of the village followed, led by Marigó Karampela — also known as Bambu — joining the pursuit. The Ottomans retreated toward Doliana. Greek forces chased them as far as Kossyvorema, where they made a stand, and then into Doliana itself. Nikitaras, freed from his siege at last, joined the pursuit. The chase ended only when darkness prevented the Greeks from distinguishing their own fighters from the fleeing enemy.

The Greek victory at Vervena and Doliana was the first significant battlefield success of the Peloponnesian uprising. It held Tripolitza's garrison in check for months and strengthened the coordination between the Arcadian revolutionary forces.

Vervena hosted more than one decisive moment. On June 21, 1821, the village received Dimitrios Ypsilantis — a figure of considerable symbolic importance as the younger brother of Alexander Ypsilantis, who had launched the revolution in the Danubian Principalities — at an official reception where the leadership of the revolution was formally recognized. Around ten thousand people attended: Peloponnesian senators, notables, military commanders, soldiers, and civilians. The ceremony gave the revolution an institutional legitimacy it had not yet fully established.

The camp at Vervena was dissolved, re-established, and dissolved again as the fortunes of the war shifted. In June 1825, it was reconstituted as General Headquarters to resist Ibrahim Pasha's Egyptian forces, which had landed in the Peloponnese earlier that year and were devastating the countryside. In July 1825, Ibrahim succeeded in taking the camp, but twelve fighters under Andreas Kontakis held out in the three-story tower of Papakonstantinou in the village center — a tower the Egyptians failed to capture. The camp was re-established two days later.

In August 1825, Kolokotronis used the Vervena camp to destroy mills at Piana and Davia that were supplying Ibrahim's forces in Tripoli. In July 1826, reinforced with cavalry, the camp mounted an ambush on the plains of Tegea that destroyed 400 Egyptian soldiers.

Six of the village's original tower-houses from the revolutionary period survive today, including Kolokotronis' own headquarters at the tower of Avgoustis. The marble Great Fountain of 1788 still flows. Since 2021, following a Presidential Decree, the anniversary of the Battle of Vervena has been officially observed as a local national holiday.