Hesiod describes Pandora as a punishment sent by Zeus to humanity.
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His Works and Days contains the fullest early account of Pandora’s creation and arrival among humans. The Theogony also refers to the creation of woman in connection with Zeus’s punishment of Prometheus and humanity.
In Hesiod’s narrative, Zeus is responding to Prometheus’s defiance. Prometheus has deceived Zeus in a sacrifice and has taken fire for humans, so Zeus orders the gods to create a beautiful woman whose arrival will introduce new suffering. The story is therefore connected to the myth of fire as well as to the vessel.
Homer is sometimes named by mistake because he is the other major early Greek poet, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide the principal Pandora story. Hesiod is the key ancient literary source.