Hesiod is the ancient Greek poet who first describes Pandora’s creation in surviving literature.
The fullest early accounts appear in Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony, poems generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. These works connect Pandora with Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus’s theft of fire.
Homer does not provide the familiar Pandora creation narrative in the surviving Homeric epics. Sappho and Pindar were also major Greek poets, but neither is the primary ancient source for this story.
The two Hesiodic accounts differ in emphasis and detail. Works and Days gives the more developed narrative of Pandora, her marriage to Epimetheus, and the release of evils from the container.