According to the ancient Greeks' concept, there are 4 archetypal forces of creation in our world: Earth, Water, Air and Fire.
However, the Greek philosopher Aristotle added a fifth element, the Aether and he somehow managed to influence the cosmology of Buddhism and Hinduism with the concept that Aether actually symbolises what's hidden beyond the materialist world.
Empedocles was a Greek philosopher/healer who lived around 450 BC and he supported the idea that all matter has as a main source the 4 elements, of Earth, Water, Air and Fire. It was then on that Aristotle supported his concept of a system which is combined by 5 elements. According to Empedocles the 4 elements take their energy source by Love and Strife. Love corresponds to the Greek goddess Aphrodite (goddess of beauty) and Strife to the Greek god Aries (god of war). So, what comes next to mind is a basic similarity of the Eastern cosmology which refers to the energies of Yin and Yang (feminine and masculine energies).
It was much later, at "the age of empires" that European alchemists used to symbolise the passive, feminine energy of Love or Yin with the Queen and the aggressive, masculine energy of Strife or Yang with the King.
The Greek philosopher/physician Hippocrates who lived at 400 BC seems to be one of the first intellectuals who changed the course of theories about elements by applying their powerful energy influence to the human psyche.
The four humors and their qualities - source
Hippocrates associated fire with the Choleric humor. Hippocrates in his theory states in short: fire is a bodily fluid carried in cholesterol and people who are Choleric tend to be extremely active and enthusiastic.
Water represents the clear bodily fluids carried by the lymphatic system and it has the power to transform the physical energy in the body. So, water is associated with the Phlegmatic humor and phlegmatic people are very flexible as well as emotionally balanced (though they do tend to have illusions on some level).
Air is the element which is associated with the Sanguine humor carried by the blood, distributing the oxygen to human tissues. Sanguine people tend to be ambitious and optimistic in general, though they easily get angry.
Fun fact: Although Hippocrates, simply used his intuition because he wasn't in a position to know or prove scientifically that air inhalation does in fact provides our body with oxygen, much later he proved to actually be right...
As for the element of earth, Hippocrates associates it with melancholy or melancholic humor. How could humor be melancholic? It could be if a person is stubborn, practical, inflexible and somehow sarcastic with other people. Note that melancholic humor's energy is physically connected with bodily waste products...