Ancient Greece

The classification of people by type date back to the Ancient Greeks.

Plato, in his philosophy, stated that humans are a mix of the four astrological elements Earth, Fire, Air and Water.

Empedocles wrote of "human recipe" made of dry, warm, humid and cold elements.

It was the medical doctor Claudius Galenus, mentioned by Carl Jung in his work, that introduced the four temperaments. His classification lasted for almost two millenia unchanged and is still valid today. His four temperaments (Melancholic, Sanguine, Choleric and Phlegmatic) correlate almost perfectly with Jung's view and with today's quantitative models.