Erasmus is commonly credited with changing Pandora’s jar into a “box” in popular retellings. The Greek word in Hesiod’s account is pithos, a large storage jar, but Erasmus used the Latin term pyxis in a sixteenth-century adaptation.
That translation helped establish the familiar phrase “Pandora’s box.” Large pithoi were practical containers in the ancient Greek world, often used for storing grain, oil, or wine. They were very different from the small box suggested by the modern English expression.
The myth itself is ancient, but the exact “box” wording is later. This is why references to Pandora often show a compact container even though Hesiod’s original object was a jar. The distinction is a famous example of how translation can reshape a myth’s imagery.