Hesiod describes Pandora as the source of the “race and tribes of women.”
The phrase appears in Hesiod’s Theogony, where Pandora’s creation is connected with Zeus’s punishment of Prometheus and humanity. In this account, women and marriage are introduced into the mythic explanation of human life after the theft of fire.
Hesiod’s portrayal reflects the social assumptions of archaic Greek poetry and is notably different from modern interpretations that treat Pandora mainly as an individual character. The Theogony and Works and Days together provide the earliest major literary framework for her story, although their emphases are not identical.
The line is sometimes paraphrased as saying Pandora was the first woman. That summary is broadly consistent with the myth, but the original wording specifically presents her as the beginning of women as a collective lineage. Later writers and artists developed the individual-character version in many directions.