Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholic: The Four Temperaments Hidden in Astrological Elements

In the fifth century BCE, a physician named Hippocrates was trying to explain why people became ill and why they reacted so differently to the same situations. The answer he proposed did not come from anatomy, but from an idea already circulating among philosophers: that everything in existence is made of four primordial substances. This is how fire, earth, air, and water, originally conceived as the matter of the universe, entered the human body and, centuries later, entered astrology.

From cosmic matter to human temperament

The idea of four elements as the foundation of all things had already been sketched by several Greek thinkers before Hippocrates: Tales believed water was the origin of everything, Anaximenes championed air, Xenophanes included earth, and Heraclitus insisted on fire. It was Empedocles of Acragas, in the fifth century BCE, who brought these four loose ideas together into a single theory, affirming that fire, earth, air, and water coexist from the beginning of time, in proportions that vary in each existing thing.

Hippocrates took this philosophical foundation and applied it to medicine: if the cosmos is made of these four elements, the body should also reflect the same composition. Later, in the second century CE, physician Galen formalized this idea into four bodily fluids, the humors, each associated with an element and a season of the year. From this combination came the four temperaments that, centuries later, would echo in how astrology describes each triad of signs. This logic of grouping signs by element is the same one that explains why signs of the same element have such different personalities from one another, since each sign's modality (cardinal, fixed, or mutable) modulates the base temperament.

The table below summarizes the correspondence between the four classical humors, their elements, seasons, and the sign triads to which modern astrology typically associates them:

Choleric: the temperament of fire and summer

The choleric temperament was associated with fire and the summer season, the period of most intense heat in the year. In the classical description, the choleric person is energetic, decisive, with a strong will to act and little patience for waiting. It is not hard to see the parallel with Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, the three fire signs of the zodiac: signs that need to express themselves, lead, and conquer, driven by an almost physical impulse to turn intention into immediate action. The heat of summer, in this ancient logic, is not just a season: it is the image of a body (and a personality) that burns within and needs to spend that energy in the world.

Melancholic: the temperament of earth and autumn

To earth fell the melancholic temperament, linked to autumn, the season when nature slows down and things fold inward. The classical melancholic is described as thoughtful, cautious, with a tendency to weigh each decision before acting. This description speaks directly to Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn: signs that build slowly, respect concrete limits, and prefer the security of a well-founded objective to a leap in the dark. No wonder the popular expression of having your feet on the ground arises from this very same logic of an element that resists hurrying and values what can be touched, measured, and gained step by step. This earth stability, by the way, appears as a common point in some of the most enduring sign pairings in astrology, as shown in the article on pairings between Earth and Water signs.

Phlegmatic: the temperament of water and winter

The water element received the phlegmatic temperament, associated with winter, a season of withdrawal and slower rhythm. In the ancient medical tradition, the phlegmatic person was seen as calm and tranquil, but also subject to deep internal shifts, sensitive to stimuli that do not always show on the surface. Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces carry this same pattern in astrological reading: they are the signs linked to emotion, to connection, to a sensitivity that is sometimes subtle on the surface and intense within. The idea that water people recognize each other from a distance, even without exchanging words, has roots in this same logic of an element that operates less through visible action and more through emotional resonance.

Sanguine: the temperament of air and spring

Finally, air was linked to the sanguine temperament and spring, a season of flowering and movement. The classical sanguine was described as sociable, curious, optimistic, always seeking novelty and contact with other people. It is the portrait astrology makes of Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius: signs organized around exchange, conversation, and the circulation of ideas. Air, in this sense, is never a still element: it moves from one point to another, carries information, connects what was separate, exactly as spring spreads seeds and new beginnings throughout the environment.

Why this medical heritage still matters

This bridge between elements, humors, and seasons did not remain confined to antiquity. For centuries, mainly through medieval Arab science, the theory of four elements kept astrology interwoven with medicine, at a time when diagnosing an illness and reading a celestial map were related practices, often conducted by the same person. This fusion only began to unravel with the arrival of the Age of Reason, when medicine and astrology went their separate ways. It is worth noting that the zodiac signs used in this correspondence with temperaments do not correspond to the astronomical constellations officially recognized: the International Astronomical Union is the body responsible for defining the boundaries and official nomenclature of constellations in the sky, a system distinct from the symbolic division into twelve signs that astrology uses.

In the twentieth century, psychiatrist Carl Jung recovered part of this ancient logic, but shifted the focus from the body to the mind. He recognized in the fire, earth, air, and water triads of the zodiac the oldest known psychological typology on record, and saw in them the seeds of the four functions he would later describe in his own theory: fire as intuition, earth as sensation, air as thought, and water as feeling. Interestingly, Empedocles had already noted, back in ancient Greece, that people with the four elements more balanced among themselves tended to have a broader and less distorted perception of reality. Jung arrived at a similar observation with his patients, centuries later, looking no longer at bodily humors but at the balance (or imbalance) of psychological functions. Anyone wanting to better understand their own elemental balance can also look at the complete birth chart, not just the sun sign: the article on the element missing from your birth chart shows how to identify and compensate for an elemental absence or weakness.

Knowing that choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic came before any birth chart does not change what fire, earth, air, and water mean today in astrology, but it explains why these four categories feel so natural and so ancient at the same time. They passed through Greek medicine, natural philosophy, Arab science, and modern psychology before arriving at the zodiac wheel as we know it, carrying in each triad a piece of this long conversation between body, temperament, and cosmos.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between temperament and astrological element?

Temperament is the term used in ancient Greek medicine (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic), linked to the four humors of Hippocrates and Galen. Element is the term astrology uses today (fire, earth, air, water) to group signs into triads. The two systems describe similar patterns of behavior, but were born in different contexts: one in ancient medicine, the other in the astrological tradition.

Why was summer associated with the choleric temperament and fire?

In ancient medical logic, each season had a quality of heat and moisture that combined with a specific humor. Summer, being the hottest season of the year, was associated with fire and the choleric temperament, described as energetic and decisive, the same behavioral pattern attributed today to Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius.

Did Carl Jung use the theory of four elements in psychology?

Yes. Jung saw in the fire, earth, air, and water triads of the zodiac the oldest known psychological typology on record, and from it developed his own four psychological functions: intuition (fire), sensation (earth), thought (air), and feeling (water).

Do the four temperaments have scientific proof?

No. The theory of four humors was the foundation of Western medicine for centuries, but was abandoned with the advance of modern science. Today it is studied as a historical milestone in Greek medicine and philosophy, just as astrology is treated as a symbolic and cultural system, not as science with proven predictive value.