Erasmus translated Pandora's Greek jar into a “box,” helping create the modern phrase.
The ancient Greek account uses pithos, a large storage jar. In a Latin retelling associated with the Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus, the container became pyxis, a word for a box or small container. This translation helped establish the expression “Pandora's box” in later European usage.
Erasmus was a Dutch Renaissance scholar and Christian humanist who lived from 1466 to 1536. His proverb collections and classical adaptations circulated widely, making his Latin wording influential beyond the immediate context of the original Greek poem.
The modern phrase is now firmly established, even though “Pandora's jar” is closer to Hesiod's wording. This is a translation history rather than a change in the original myth: the ancient story itself did not suddenly replace a box with a jar.