Hesiod is credited with the first surviving use of Pandora’s name. His poems Theogony and Works and Days, composed in archaic Greece, provide the earliest extant literary versions of the myth.
Theogony focuses on the gods, their origins, and the structure of divine power. Works and Days is a didactic poem concerned with farming, justice, labor, and the difficult condition of human life. The Pandora story appears in both works, though the details and emphasis differ between them.
Hesiod lived around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, although the exact dates remain uncertain. He is traditionally associated with Boeotia in central Greece and is commonly discussed alongside Homer as one of the earliest major Greek poets.
Later authors and artists expanded, altered, or reinterpreted Pandora, but Hesiod’s poems remain the principal ancient literary foundation for the story. Earlier oral traditions may have existed, yet no earlier surviving written account is known.