In Hesiod’s Greek poem Works and Days, Pandora’s container is called a pithos.
A pithos was a large storage jar used in ancient Greece for products such as grain, oil, or wine. Hesiod’s wording describes Pandora opening this kind of vessel, not a small hinged box. The familiar English expression “Pandora’s box” developed later through translation and artistic tradition.
The story appears in Works and Days, generally dated to the seventh century BCE. Zeus has the gods create Pandora as part of a punishment connected with Prometheus’s theft of fire. When Pandora opens the vessel, troubles escape into the world, while hope remains inside.
A common mix-up is treating “box” as the exact ancient object. The Greek word pithos identifies a jar, although later retellings transformed it into a box. This translation history explains why the modern phrase differs from the earliest surviving literary account.