Who popularized the phrase “Pandora’s box” in Renaissance Europe?

Desiderius Erasmus popularized the phrase “Pandora’s box” in Renaissance Europe. In his Latin collection Adagia, Erasmus rendered the Greek storage vessel in Pandora’s story as a box-like container, helping establish the wording that became familiar in later languages.

Hesiod’s original Greek account uses the word pithos, generally meaning a large jar or storage vessel. Erasmus used the Latin term pyxis, which means a box or small container. That translation helped redirect the image from a large earthen jar to the compact box known in modern culture.

The expression now describes an action that creates many unexpected problems. It is commonly used in journalism, politics, science, and everyday speech, even when the subject has nothing to do with mythology.

The phrase is therefore partly a product of translation history. Pandora’s ancient story came first, but the familiar “box” wording became especially influential through Erasmus’s Renaissance Latin scholarship.