Hesiod wrote the earliest surviving account of Pandora’s creation in Greek mythology.
Hesiod was an archaic Greek poet who probably lived in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His poem Works and Days gives the fullest early narrative: Zeus orders the creation of Pandora after Prometheus steals fire for humanity.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in the Theogony, although that poem provides less detail about the famous container and its contents. The two poems are therefore important but not interchangeable sources for every part of the story.
Later writers, translators, artists, and storytellers expanded the myth, helping turn Pandora into a familiar symbol of disastrous curiosity. The popular English phrase “Pandora’s box” also reflects later transmission rather than Hesiod’s exact wording: the original Greek story describes a large storage jar.