Around which century BCE was Hesiod’s account of Pandora composed?

Hesiod’s account of Pandora was composed around the 7th century BCE. Hesiod is generally placed in the early archaic period of Greek literature, alongside the development of major oral and written poetic traditions.

The principal detailed account appears in Works and Days, a didactic poem concerned with work, justice, agriculture, and the difficulties of human life. Pandora’s story explains why suffering and labor exist, linking those conditions to the conflict between Zeus, Prometheus, and humanity.

Dating Hesiod precisely is difficult because no ancient biography provides a secure modern-style date, and the poems emerged from an oral tradition. Scholars therefore use approximate chronology rather than a single certain year. The 7th-century BCE date is the standard broad placement for Works and Days.

Hesiod also mentions Pandora in the Theogony, but that treatment is shorter. His poems are among the earliest surviving Greek literary works, making them especially important for tracing how the Pandora tradition was recorded before later Roman and European retellings changed the image into “Pandora’s box.”