Pandora opened the vessel that released troubles into the world in Greek mythology.
The story appears most fully in Hesiod’s Works and Days, where the gods create Pandora and send her to Epimetheus. She carries a sealed vessel, and curiosity or divine impulse leads her to open it. Diseases, toil, and other human miseries escape into the world.
The familiar English expression “Pandora’s box” is a later wording. Hesiod described a pithos, a large storage jar, rather than a small box. The mistake became widespread through Renaissance translations and later retellings.
Pandora is therefore not simply a villain in the ancient story. Hesiod also presents her as part of Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus stole fire. Once the vessel is opened, Pandora closes it before everything inside can escape.