Hesiod gave the earliest surviving written account of Pandora in Greek mythology.
His two major surviving poems, Works and Days and Theogony, are central sources for early Greek mythology. Works and Days contains the fuller story: Zeus has Pandora created after Prometheus steals fire for humanity, and her arrival brings suffering into the world.
The story is often summarized through the later phrase “Pandora’s box,” but Hesiod described a jar or storage vessel, not a box. The box wording became standard through later translations and retellings.
Hesiod is generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Because his poems are among the oldest surviving Greek literary works, they provide an important window into archaic Greek ideas about the gods, work, hardship, and human life.