In the Pandora myth, Hesiod’s original account says that Pandora opened a jar. The ancient Greek word pithos refers to a large storage vessel, commonly used for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine.
The phrase “Pandora’s box” became standard in later European tradition, but it does not accurately describe the container in Hesiod’s surviving Greek text. The box wording is usually connected with a sixteenth-century Latin translation by Erasmus, whose choice of the Latin word pyxis helped establish the familiar expression.
This translation history explains one of the most common mix-ups about the story. The container is not necessarily a small household box, and the original myth does not present the modern phrase as its title. Nevertheless, “Pandora’s box” remains the established English idiom.
The jar is important symbolically because it is a storage vessel holding forces that had previously been kept away from humans. Once opened, those forces spread through the world, while one thing remained inside.