The Greek poet Hesiod first describes Pandora’s creation in detail.
Hesiod tells the story in Works and Days, a didactic poem generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. The episode explains why humans must work and why suffering exists in the world. Zeus orders the gods to create Pandora after Prometheus’s theft of fire, making her part of a divine punishment.
Hesiod also refers to Pandora in the Theogony, but Works and Days provides the fuller narrative, including her creation, marriage to Epimetheus, and the opening of the storage jar. Because the two poems differ in emphasis, modern summaries often combine details from both.
Pandora is not a major figure in Homer’s surviving epics, and Homer should not be credited with the detailed creation story. Later Greek and Roman writers adapted the myth, while modern culture popularized the phrase “Pandora’s box.”