Prometheus stole fire for humanity before Pandora was created. In Greek mythology, this act provoked Zeus’s punishment and forms the background to Pandora’s story.
Prometheus was a Titan who sided with humanity. Ancient versions differ in the exact details, but the central theme is that he obtained fire from the gods and gave it to mortals, enabling cooking, craft, technology, and civilization.
Zeus regarded the theft as an offense. Hesiod’s account presents Pandora as a consequence of the conflict: Zeus orders the gods to create her as a deceptive gift connected with suffering entering the human world.
The Pandora myth and the Prometheus myth are therefore closely related but distinct episodes. Prometheus’s punishment is usually represented by his being bound to a rock while an eagle repeatedly eats his liver, a story expanded by later writers such as Aeschylus.