Hesiod used the Greek word pithos for the container later known as Pandora’s box.
In Works and Days, Hesiod describes Pandora receiving a large storage jar. The Greek noun is pithos, a substantial vessel used in the ancient Mediterranean for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine. It was not necessarily a small household box, and the word has a practical agricultural association.
The “box” wording became established much later through a translation history. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam rendered the vessel with the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That choice helped create the familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” in European languages.
Pithos and pyxis are therefore not interchangeable ancient Greek terms. Pithos is the word associated with Hesiod’s original myth, whereas pyxis describes the later box-shaped interpretation. This translation issue is one of the best-known facts about the story’s transmission.