Erasmus helped turn Pandora’s Greek jar into the familiar phrase “Pandora’s box.”
The earliest Greek account describes a pithos, or large jar. In a Latin translation and commentary associated with the Renaissance humanist Erasmus, the container was rendered with the Latin term pyxis, commonly understood as a box. That translation helped establish the version that later became standard in European languages.
Erasmus was a Dutch Renaissance scholar, priest, and textual editor whose work shaped early modern readings of classical literature. His treatment did not erase the original Greek wording, but it strongly influenced how the story was transmitted to later readers.
The popular phrase therefore reflects a translation history rather than a detail found exactly that way in Hesiod. Modern scholars regularly point out the jar-box distinction when discussing the myth’s reception.