Hesiod is the Greek poet who first records Pandora’s creation and the opening of her container in surviving literature.
The main surviving accounts appear in Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony, works generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Works and Days gives the fuller narrative of Pandora’s arrival, her container, and the spread of evils.
Homer is often named in general discussions of early Greek mythology, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide the familiar Pandora story. Hesiod is therefore the key literary source for the myth as it is usually told today.
Later writers, translators, artists, and retellers reshaped the episode. The title “Pandora’s box” became especially common through later translation traditions, even though Hesiod’s object is more accurately described as a jar or storage vessel. That vocabulary change helped fix the modern version in popular culture.