Hesiod is the earliest known Greek author to tell the Pandora story in surviving literature.
Hesiod was a Greek poet generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His poem Works and Days contains the fullest surviving ancient narrative of Pandora’s creation, marriage to Epimetheus, and opening of the vessel. His Theogony also refers to Pandora and the consequences of Prometheus’s actions, though the narrative emphasis differs.
Hesiod’s presentation is closely tied to questions about labor, suffering, divine justice, and the consequences of disobedience. The story is therefore more than a simple explanation for why evil exists: it belongs to a broader account of human hardship and the strained relationship between gods and mortals.
Homer is often named as the most famous early Greek poet, but the surviving Homeric poems do not provide the complete Pandora episode. Sappho and Sophocles lived later and are not the earliest source for this myth.