Pandora’s story first appears in the surviving works of the ancient Greek poet Hesiod.
Hesiod tells the myth in two major poems, Theogony and Works and Days. The Theogony gives an account of Pandora’s creation and the punishment connected with Prometheus, while Works and Days provides the fuller narrative of the woman, her vessel, and the consequences for humanity.
Hesiod lived in the archaic Greek period, generally dated to around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His poems are among the earliest surviving Greek literary sources to preserve the Pandora tradition.
Homer is a plausible confusion because Homeric epics are also foundational Greek poetry, but Pandora is not chiefly known from the Iliad or Odyssey. Later Greek and Roman writers adapted many details, while modern versions popularised the expression “Pandora’s box.”