The Renaissance scholar Erasmus helped popularize the “Pandora’s box” wording. Hesiod’s original Greek story describes a pithos, or large storage jar, but Erasmus’s Latin rendering used a term corresponding to a box.
Erasmus included the Pandora story in his Adagia, a widely read collection of classical proverbs and explanations first published in 1500. His version helped transmit the expression into European literary culture, where “Pandora’s box” eventually became the dominant phrase.
This is why the English expression does not precisely reproduce the container in Hesiod’s account. The change was not simply a modern illustration choice; it was rooted in a Renaissance translation and adaptation tradition.
The distinction matters because “box” suggests a small hinged container, while a pithos was a large vessel used for storage. Both terms now appear in reliable discussions, but the Greek original is the more historically exact description.