In Greek mythology, the Greek word “pithos” means “storage jar” in the Pandora story.
A pithos was a large ceramic container used in ancient Greece for storing commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod uses this term for the vessel associated with Pandora, which is why the original story is more accurately described as involving a jar than a box.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” developed through later translation history. Erasmus rendered the vessel with the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or small container, and that wording influenced later European versions. The mistranslation became so widespread that it is now the standard idiom in English.
The distinction is not merely linguistic. A large storage jar would have been a recognizable household object in the ancient Mediterranean, while a small box changes the physical image of the scene. Both expressions refer to the same mythic episode.