Erasmus helped turn Pandora’s jar into the familiar “Pandora’s box.”
The Greek source uses pithos, a large storage jar. In a sixteenth-century Latin translation, the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus rendered the container with a Latin term meaning box or small container, pyxis. That translation helped establish the wording that later spread through European languages.
Erasmus was a major Renaissance scholar, priest, and editor whose work circulated widely in Latin. His translations and classical commentary shaped how educated European readers encountered ancient Greek literature. The change from jar to box was therefore a translation choice with a long cultural afterlife.
Modern reference works often mention the discrepancy because it illustrates how familiar sayings can develop through transmission. “Pandora’s box” is not a wholly modern invention, but its exact container reflects Renaissance Latin rather than Hesiod’s Greek word. The traditional phrase remains standard in English.