Which Latin scholar helped turn Pandora’s Greek jar into a “box” in European retellings?

Desiderius Erasmus helped turn Pandora’s Greek jar into a “box” in European retellings.

The earliest Greek account describes a pithos, a large storage jar. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus prepared a Latin version of Hesiod’s story in the sixteenth century, he rendered the vessel as pyxis. In Latin, pyxis referred to a box or container, and that translation helped establish the wording that eventually became the English expression “Pandora’s box.”

Erasmus was one of the leading Renaissance humanists, known for editing classical and Christian texts and for promoting the study of Greek and Latin. His translation was not the only later influence, but it became especially important in the history of the phrase.

The change does not mean that every later artist misunderstood the myth deliberately. Translation choices often adapt unfamiliar objects for new audiences. Still, the distinction remains useful: Hesiod’s original container is a jar, whereas the standard modern idiom says box.