Erasmus’s Latin translation helped popularize the phrase “Pandora’s box.”
The ancient Greek sources describe Pandora receiving a large storage jar, usually identified with the Greek word pithos. The Greek text does not describe a small box in the modern sense. The familiar English expression developed through later translation and retelling.
The Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus helped establish the “box” wording in Latin. In his interpretation of the story, the container became a box, and that version influenced the way the myth circulated in European languages. Later translations and artistic adaptations reinforced the image of Pandora opening a box rather than a large jar.
This translation history explains a common mix-up: “Pandora’s box” is the standard modern phrase, but “Pandora’s jar” is closer to the object described in Hesiod’s Greek account. The myth’s central idea remains the same—the release of evils or troubles into the human world, with hope left behind.