In Greek mythology, Pandora opens a jar in Hesiod’s Works and Days.
Hesiod’s poem describes Pandora receiving a pithos, a large earthenware storage vessel. After opening it, she releases the troubles that will afflict humankind. The story is part of Hesiod’s account of why human life includes toil, sickness, and other hardships. The vessel is sometimes described in translation simply as a container, but “jar” is the clearest English rendering of pithos.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” reflects a later translation history rather than Hesiod’s original object. In the sixteenth century, the humanist Erasmus translated the Greek container with the Latin word pyxis, which means box or casket. That choice spread through European languages and became fixed in popular culture. The change matters because modern illustrations often show a small hinged box, while ancient Greek pithoi were large jars used for storage. The myth therefore concerns Pandora and a jar, even though the later idiom remains “opening Pandora’s box.”