Erasmus translated Pandora’s Greek storage jar into a “box” in a famous Latin edition.
The influential Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus used the Latin word pyxis, meaning box or small container, when discussing Pandora’s vessel. This helped establish the expression “Pandora’s box” in later European languages, even though Hesiod’s Greek text refers to a pithos, a large storage jar or vessel.
The change reflects a translation history rather than a new event in the ancient myth. Erasmus worked with classical Greek and Latin texts at a time when humanists were editing, translating, and circulating ancient literature widely. His Latin rendering reached readers who shaped later European education and literary culture.
The distinction matters because artistic images often show Pandora opening a compact box, while the ancient story’s container was more like a large jar. Ovid is associated with Roman mythology and the Metamorphoses, but the famous box wording is chiefly connected with Erasmus’s translation tradition.