In the Pandora myth, Prometheus’s theft of fire led Zeus to create Pandora as punishment.
Prometheus is a Titan who defies Zeus by taking fire from the gods and giving it to humanity. In Hesiod’s telling, Zeus responds by arranging a deceptive gift for humans: Pandora. Her arrival is connected to the consequences of Prometheus’s act and to Zeus’s broader conflict with him.
Prometheus and Pandora are therefore linked in the same mythic sequence, but they play opposite roles. Prometheus helps humanity by bringing fire, while Pandora becomes the vehicle through which suffering enters the human world. The story also includes Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, who accepts Pandora.
Later Greek and Roman writers developed Prometheus into a more consistently heroic figure. Hesiod’s version is more suspicious of his challenge to divine authority and places greater emphasis on the costs of crossing Zeus.