Hesiod is the Greek poet credited with creating the Pandora myth in surviving ancient literature. His two surviving poems, the Works and Days and the Theogony, provide the earliest known literary versions of the story.
In the Works and Days, Pandora is introduced as part of Zeus’s response to Prometheus and the theft of fire. The poem links her arrival to the origin of hardships in human life. The Theogony gives a shorter account, focusing on the creation of woman and the divine gifts associated with her.
Hesiod lived during the archaic period of Greek literature, commonly dated to around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. He is often discussed alongside Homer, but the Pandora story is not attributed to Homer’s surviving epics. Later writers and artists reshaped the myth, yet Hesiod remains the key ancient literary source for its earliest recorded form.