Hesiod gives the earliest surviving written account of Pandora’s jar.
The story appears in two poems attributed to Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days. Theogony introduces Pandora in the context of Zeus’s conflict with Prometheus, while Works and Days gives the fuller account of Pandora’s creation, marriage to Epimetheus, and opening of the container.
Hesiod probably lived around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, although the precise dates remain uncertain. His poems are among the earliest surviving works of Greek literature and are major sources for Greek myths about gods, Titans, creation, and human suffering.
Homer is often associated with early Greek epic, but the surviving Homeric poems do not provide the classic Pandora’s jar narrative. Later authors and artists expanded and changed the story, yet Hesiod remains the key early literary source.