Erasmus’s Latin translation helped turn Hesiod’s jar into the modern “Pandora’s box.”
The ancient Greek text describes a pithos, a large storage jar. In the sixteenth century, the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the term into Latin as pyxis, which means a box or small container. Later European retellings followed this wording, making “Pandora’s box” far more familiar than “Pandora’s jar.”
This is a classic example of how translation can reshape a myth’s popular image. A pithos was a substantial vessel used for storage, while a pyxis was a smaller container. The change did not replace the myth’s plot, but it altered the object most readers visualize.
Erasmus was a major Renaissance scholar, theologian, and writer associated with northern European humanism. He worked extensively with classical texts and helped spread Greek and Latin learning through print. The phrase became entrenched in English and other languages long after Hesiod’s original poem was composed.