Prometheus stole fire for humanity before Zeus created Pandora in the Greek myth.
The theft explains why Zeus responds by ordering Pandora’s creation. In the mythic sequence, Prometheus takes fire from the gods and gives it to humans, improving their ability to live and create. Zeus then devises a countermeasure that brings Pandora and a container of troubles into the human world.
Fire has a broader symbolic role in Greek mythology. It can represent technology, craft, knowledge, and the boundary between divine and human life. Prometheus’s act is therefore more than a simple theft: it changes humanity’s capabilities and provokes divine punishment.
The Pandora narrative is sometimes told separately from the Prometheus story, but Hesiod links them closely. The order is important: Prometheus’s theft comes first, and Pandora’s arrival is presented as Zeus’s response.