The Greek word for the jar Pandora opens in Hesiod’s original myth is pithos. A pithos was a large storage vessel used in the ancient Greek world, commonly for commodities such as grain, oil, or wine.
Hesiod’s Works and Days does not describe Pandora opening a small box. It refers to a pithos, a substantial earthenware container. The familiar English expression “Pandora’s box” developed much later because of a translation history involving the Renaissance scholar Erasmus.
Erasmus translated the Greek story into Latin and used the word pyxis, meaning a box or small container, rather than preserving the original term pithos. That choice helped establish the wording now common in English and many other languages. The translation also encouraged later artists and writers to imagine a compact box.
An amphora is another famous Greek vessel, but it normally has two handles and a narrower body. A pithos is the specific container associated with Pandora in Hesiod’s account, making vessel vocabulary important when comparing the ancient text with later retellings.