In Hesiod’s Pandora story, the original Greek name for the container was pithos. A pithos was a large earthenware storage jar, commonly used in the ancient Greek world for goods such as grain, oil, or wine.
Hesiod’s Works and Days does not describe Pandora opening a small box. It refers to a pithos supplied by Zeus and associated with the release of troubles into the human world. The familiar expression “Pandora’s box” arose much later through translation and artistic tradition, especially after the Renaissance.
The distinction matters because a pithos could be a substantial household or agricultural container, not a hinged chest. Erasmus is often credited with helping popularize the Latin phrase pyxis Pandorae, or “Pandora’s box,” in the sixteenth century. The modern title therefore preserves the myth’s central image while changing the object itself.