Desiderius Erasmus’s 1508 Latin translation helped turn Pandora’s jar into the phrase “Pandora’s box.”
The earliest Greek version uses pithos, a large storage jar. In his collection Adagia, first published in 1500 and expanded in later editions, Erasmus rendered the vessel with the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. The translation became highly influential among educated European readers.
As the story passed through Latin and vernacular languages, “Pandora’s box” became the standard expression. The phrase now describes an action that creates many unexpected problems, even when the speaker is discussing something unrelated to Greek mythology.
The translation does not mean Erasmus invented Pandora’s story. Hesiod had written the myth many centuries earlier. Erasmus’s importance is that his wording helped reshape the object in the popular Western tradition from a large jar into a box.