Erasmus helped popularize the idea of “Pandora’s box” by translating the container as a box.
The ancient Greek version in Hesiod describes a pithos, a large storage jar. During the Renaissance, the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the story into Latin and used the word pyxis, which refers to a box or small container. That choice helped shift the story’s familiar image in later European languages.
The English phrase “Pandora’s box” consequently reflects a translation history rather than the exact vessel named by Hesiod. Artists and writers then reinforced the box image through illustrations, retellings, and moral stories. The modern expression now means a source of many unforeseen problems released by one action.
Ovid did write extensively about Greek mythology in Latin, but the specific translation change associated with the container is linked to Erasmus. Virgil and Cicero are also major Latin authors, yet neither is the usual attribution for popularizing this particular “box” wording.