Hesiod wrote the earliest surviving literary versions of Pandora’s story.
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His Works and Days contains the best-known account of Pandora’s creation and the release of human hardships. His Theogony also refers to Pandora and the consequences of Zeus’s punishment of humanity.
The story is connected to the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus. After Prometheus helped humanity obtain fire, Zeus arranged for a woman to be created and presented to humankind. Hesiod describes her as richly endowed by the gods, and names her Pandora, “all-gifted.”
Hesiod is not the author of every later detail associated with the tale. The exact phrase “Pandora’s box,” the emphasis on a box, and many modern retellings developed through later translations and adaptations. Homer, although another major early Greek poet, does not provide the surviving foundational Pandora narrative.