Desiderius Erasmus is linked to the translation that helped turn Pandora’s jar into a box. In his Adagia, Erasmus rendered the Greek pithos with the Latin word pyxis, a term for a box or container.
Erasmus was a major Renaissance humanist who published collections of classical proverbs and commentary. His work circulated widely in Europe, making classical stories accessible to readers who encountered them through Latin rather than ancient Greek.
The change from jar to box was not simply a modern illustration choice. It entered the influential Latin transmission of the story and eventually shaped the English expression “Pandora’s box.” The earliest Greek account, however, uses pithos, meaning a large storage jar.