Hesiod used the Greek word pithos for Pandora’s container, later translated into English as “box.”
A pithos was a large storage jar used in ancient Greece for commodities such as grain, wine, or oil. In Hesiod’s account, Pandora receives this vessel and opens it, releasing hardships into the human world.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” developed from a translation tradition rather than from the exact wording of the earliest Greek story. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus translated pithos as the Latin pyxis, meaning a small box, helping establish the later European image.
The mistake is therefore about the container’s shape, not the central event. Hesiod’s original image was a substantial jar or storage vessel; “box” became the standard expression in English and many other languages.