Pandora’s creation was presented as punishment for Prometheus’s theft of fire in Greek mythology.
Prometheus is portrayed as taking fire from the gods and giving it to humanity. The gift represents more than warmth: fire supports cooking, craft, metalworking, and the wider development of civilization. Zeus responds by imposing a punishment that reaches both Prometheus and mortals.
Pandora is part of that response. Rather than simply returning the fire, Zeus sends humanity a new source of suffering through the first woman and the sealed jar. Hesiod’s story thus places the jar episode inside the larger Prometheus myth rather than treating it as an unrelated tale.
Later traditions add other details, including Prometheus’s own punishment by being chained and having his liver repeatedly eaten by an eagle. Those details belong to the wider Prometheus cycle; the specific theft connected to Pandora is the theft of fire.