Hesiod first tells the detailed story of Pandora opening the container.
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His Works and Days contains the fullest early literary version of Pandora’s creation, her arrival among humans, and the release of troubles from the jar. The poem places the story within a broader explanation of why human life involves labor and hardship.
Hesiod’s Theogony also mentions the creation of woman as part of Zeus’s punishment, but it does not narrate the jar episode in the same detail. Homer’s epics do not provide the familiar Pandora story. Later Greek, Roman, and European authors adapted the myth, and artists supplied visual interpretations that helped establish the modern image of a woman opening a box.