Pithos is the Greek word for the storage jar later translated as a “box” in Pandora’s story.
Hesiod’s Works and Days uses the ancient Greek noun pithos, which refers to a large storage jar. Pithoi were commonly used for commodities such as grain, wine, or oil. The modern expression “Pandora’s box” developed much later through a translation tradition rather than from the exact container described by Hesiod.
The “box” wording is commonly associated with the sixteenth-century humanist Desiderius Erasmus. In translating or adapting the story into Latin, Erasmus used the word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That choice helped establish the form that became familiar in European languages.
The difference matters because it changes the visual image without changing the story’s central event. Ancient audiences would have imagined a substantial jar, not necessarily a hinged wooden box. “Pandora’s jar” is therefore closer to Hesiod’s wording, while “Pandora’s box” is the established modern idiom.