In ancient Greek medicine, each of the four humours became associated with an element. According to Aristotle, water is both cold and wet and occupies a place between air and earth among the elemental spheres.

The four elements were arranged concentrically around the center of the Universe to form the sublunary sphere. Plato's student Aristotle (384–322 BC) developed a different explanation for the elements based on pairs of qualities. This makes water the element with the greatest number of sides, which Plato regarded as appropriate because water flows out of one's hand when picked up, as if it is made of tiny little balls. In the Timaeus, his major cosmological dialogue, the Platonic solid associated with water is the icosahedron which is formed from twenty equilateral triangles. Plato (427–347 BC) took over the four elements of Empedocles. Empedocles roots became the four classical elements of Greek philosophy. 435 BC) selected four archai for his four roots: air, fire, water and earth. Water was one of many archai proposed by the Pre-socratics, most of whom tried to reduce all things to a single substance. In contemporary esoteric traditions, it is commonly associated with the qualities of emotion and intuition. Water is one of the classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy along with air, earth and fire, in the Asian Indian system Panchamahabhuta, and in the Chinese cosmological and physiological system Wu Xing.

Water element dragon city