In Greek mythology, Hesiod first used the name Pandora in a surviving account.
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His Works and Days contains the best-known early narrative of Pandora, while his Theogony also discusses her creation and the consequences of Zeus’s punishment.
Hesiod’s version predates the familiar modern phrase “Pandora’s box” by many centuries. He describes a jar rather than a box and names the woman Pandora. His poems are therefore the essential primary literary sources for the myth.
Homer is sometimes suggested because he is the other major early Greek poet, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide the standard Pandora story. Ovid and Virgil wrote in Latin centuries later and were not the originators of Hesiod’s account.