Around which century BCE was Hesiod’s Works and Days, the main Pandora source, composed?

Hesiod’s Works and Days, the main literary source for Pandora’s jar, was composed around the 7th century BCE.

Hesiod is generally placed in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, and Works and Days is commonly dated to the early seventh century BCE. The poem combines farming advice, moral instruction, disputes about justice, and myths explaining the human condition, including Pandora’s creation.

The date is approximate because no authorial manuscript survives from Hesiod’s lifetime. The text was transmitted through later copying, and scholars use language, style, historical clues, and comparisons with other Greek poetry to establish a likely period.

Pandora’s story therefore predates the classical Greek authors of the fifth century BCE. Later writers and artists reshaped it, but Hesiod’s poem remains the earliest surviving extended literary account of the myth.