In Hesiod’s Theogony, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora.
The command followed Prometheus’s theft of fire for humanity. Zeus wanted a punishment that would affect humans as well as Prometheus, so he instructed Hephaestus, the divine smith, to shape a woman from earth. Other gods then contributed qualities or adornments to her.
Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days provide the earliest surviving literary accounts of Pandora, but they emphasize different details. Theogony focuses on her creation and the consequences of Prometheus’s actions, whereas Works and Days gives the fuller account of the container and the release of evils.
Modern summaries sometimes describe Pandora as being “made by all the gods,” which captures the story’s collaborative decoration but not the specific command. Zeus is the authority who orders the creation, and Hephaestus is the craftsman who forms her.