Pandora
Created by Zeus to release evil into the world.
Zeus abhorred people, but Prometheus the Titan kindly protected them. The two gods were vicious toward each other after Prometheus had made the first men to walk the earth. Their hatred was driven deeper after Prometheus had returned the gift of fire to man that Zeus had taken away. Zeus was outraged and decided to punish mankind by making a woman who would plague the world with all kinds of evil: Pandora. He went to Hephaestus, the smith god, and told him to form her out of clay. Life was breathed into her by Athena, and Aphrodite gave her the gift of beauty. Hermes arranged her marriage to Prometheus' (meaning: "forethought") brother Epimetheus (meaning: "afterthought"). Epimetheus was urged by Prometheus to avoid Pandora at all costs. He ignored his brother and married her anyway, accepting her dowry of divine "gifts" inside a sealed jar. They did not know that the jar held all the evils possible. There are two different versions of the story; the first says that Prometheus knew what was in the jar because he had placed in it every one of the world's problems. Hope was the only good thing in it, and it was at the bottom. One day, Pandora went against her husband's will and opened the jar, setting the evil free into the world. That is why "Pandora's Box" now is used to illustrate a source of great sorrow, resentment, anger and pain. The other version says the jar held everything that was virtuous, and when it was opened, all good escaped.
Pandora had a daughter named Pyrrah who married the Greek counterpart of Noah, a Biblical character. His name was Deucalion. After Zeus decided to doom all humankind because they were wicked, the couple escaped the monstrous flood he sent by building a boat for themselves and filling it with food.
Pandora is regarded as the Greek Eve because one can draw parallels between Adam and Eve's entrance into a new world filled with toil and pain, and the world affected by the strife released from Pandora's Box.