Desiderius Erasmus helped create the phrase “Pandora’s box” by translating Hesiod’s vessel into a Latin word associated with a box.
Hesiod’s Greek text describes a pithos, a large storage jar. In a sixteenth-century Latin rendering, Erasmus used the word pyxis, which means a box or small container. The influential translation helped shift European retellings away from the original jar and toward the compact box familiar today.
This does not mean Erasmus invented Pandora’s entire myth. The ancient story was already known through Greek literature and later classical interpretation. His translation choice instead influenced the physical image and wording that became standard in many modern languages. The episode is a classic example of how a seemingly small translation decision can change the cultural memory of an ancient story.