Hesiod is traditionally credited with the earliest surviving story of Pandora.
The Boeotian poet Hesiod presents Pandora in two works: the Theogony and Works and Days. His accounts connect her creation and arrival with Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus’s theft of fire. The story is therefore part of a larger explanation for why human life includes labor, suffering, and hardship.
Hesiod lived during the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, although the precise dates are uncertain. He is usually discussed alongside Homer as one of the earliest major Greek poets whose works survive in substantial form.
Later writers and artists expanded, altered, or simplified Pandora’s story. As a result, details familiar today may come from later classical, Roman, Renaissance, or modern adaptations rather than directly from Hesiod. Hesiod remains the key ancient source for the core narrative.