Back in 1948, Kathleen Freeman's "Ancilla to Pre-Socratic Philosophers" was a genuine gift to English-speakers interested in the early Greek thinkers, but not at home in Greek, Latin, and German. In this "handmaiden" she translated the "fragments" -- actually quotations in texts by other, later, writers, although a few physical fragments have turned up on papyri -- as they were presented in the then most-recent edition of a classic of scholarship, the fifth edition of H. Diels' "Fragmente der Vorsokratiker." (Which, for those who haven't guessed, was one of the monuments of late-nineteenth-century German classical studies.)
The translation was severely plain, and seems to have pretty much avoided any but the most basic interpretation -- that of vocabulary and grammar (which can get pretty controversial for this material!). She was not the first to translate most of these passages in one place (Burnet's 1892 "Early Greek Philosophy," and its revisions, included a great many), but her work was both exceptionally comprehensive, and when published, up-to-date; the title of "Ancilla" indicated, to those familiar with the word, that it was intended to assist.
The book was originally published as part of a set, along with "The Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Companion to Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker," which is now out of print. It was obviously intended as a supplemental reader, to be used with one of the many books on the history of Greek philosophy (not necessarily Freeman's "Companion.") There is not even a clear statement of the rationale for segregating this extremely diverse group as all characterized by being predecessors to Socrates. (Although, in fact, some seem to have been his younger contemporaries....) Nietzsche, who, early in his short career as a classical philologist, did an important study of one of the major late-classical sources, suggested calling them "Pre-Platonic." This is actually more helpful; what they most clearly have in common is that Plato's works are the first such to survive "in bulk," and their writings reach us only in snippets. Traditional usage prevailed, with Diels, with Freeman, and everyone else.
The "Ancilla" was restricted to Diels' "B" texts, those he regarded as certainly or likely to be the actual words of the men to whom they were attributed. The much more voluminous "A" texts, the biographical, descriptive, and anecdotal "Testimonies," were excluded (Freeman dealt with them in "Companion"). Freeman's was a modest-looking but difficult project, carried out to the satisfaction of many classicists -- although every specialist, of course, found something to object to in the treatment of his or her favored Pre-Socratic.
Since the book was largely aimed at people finding their way through the literature, Freeman thoughtfully provided a table to find fifth-edition Diels texts as numbered in the fourth edition, which was cited in much of the older secondary literature in English.
Naturally, the sixth (by some complex reckonings, also reprinted as the tenth) edition of Diels, as revised by W. Kranz (hence DK), appeared shortly thereafter, in 1952. Scholarship since has relied on this version, known as Diels-Kranz, citing texts by their 1952 DK numbers. Unhappily, neither Harvard University Press nor, apparently, the British publisher, Blackwell, saw fit to issue a new edition of the "Ancilla," reflecting any changes, or even adding a note making clear whether, and where, the standard numbering had changed in the Diels / DK transition, let alone any differences in the German translation.
In fact, it was not until 1983 that the "Ancilla" even appeared in paperback (from Harvard); in the meantime, competing volumes, such as Philip Wheelwright's "The Presocratics" (1966; still in print) had become available, with fewer fragments, but many "Testimonies," and some sort of running commentary.
This delay is somewhat puzzling. The post-war years saw a considerable increase in publications concerning the Pre-Socratics, and a less expensive version would presumably have been a textbook of choice in a variety of courses, not just Greek philosophy. Most notably, the German philosophers Heidegger and Jaspers freely interpreted them, if rarely to the satisfaction of a classicist. (More recently, David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames made considerable use of the Pre-Socratics in a trilogy of studies comparing ancient Chinese and early western thought, "Thinking Through Confucius," "Anticipating China," and "Thinking From the Han." I have found these comparisons illuminating.)
But at least it is available. And the "Ancilla" still has considerable value, besides its still nearly-complete coverage. Since it had no burden of citations of secondary literature, and no explicit interpretation, there was little to become hopelessly out of date as the pace of publication picked up, and continued to accelerate. In 2002, Gregory Hays cited it, in a new translation of Marcus Aurelius [Modern Library], as "a good starting point" for "Heraclitus and other early philosophers who appear in the *Meditations*."
So the "Ancilla" remains a fine piece of work, endlessly useful to the student. It is just the book to have at hand while reading someone's Greek-laden exposition of, say, Parmenides or Empedocles, or to check a translation that seems too good, or too convenient for an argument, to be taken at face value.
In any other situation, however, it is also likely to be endlessly frustrating. Not so much because it doesn't answer questions, but because it gives no guidance in finding answers (you just have to look elsewhere), and doesn't even suggest what questions would be appropriate.
Fortunately, when you reach this stage, there are some excellent, and very recent, volumes of translations, currently in print, which cover much of the same ground, but with much more information. Two of them, which should be readily available, also rely mainly on the "B" texts. Jonathan Barnes' volume for the Penguin Classics, "Early Greek Philosophy" (1987) is in its second edition (2002), which now includes the most spectacular addition to our knowledge of the Pre-Socratics, the "Strasbourg Papyrus" of Empedocles. Barnes provides an interpretive introduction, and useful bibliographies, but only brief head notes to the translations.
The Penguin Classics volume is in competition with Robin Waterfield's more extensive translation of "The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and The Sophists" in the Oxford World's Classics series (2000), which includes many "A" texts, and the "Strasbourg Papyrus," has both explanatory and textual notes, and generally is well-provided with aides to the reader (although it lacks Barnes' helpful Subject Index). It is unusual in including the surviving passages of the interesting figures known as Sophists, whom Plato had rejected as not being "real" Philosophers. (The Penguin Classics issued its own "The Greek Sophists," translated by John Dillon and Tania Gergel, in 2003).
Still, Freeman's book is far handier as a quick reference; the virtue of its limitations.
For those interested in the actual Greek (and some Latin) texts, including a lot of the "A" Testimonies, and some (usually) not-too-technical discussions of textual problems and philosophical issues, the first place to go used to be G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, "The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts" (Cambridge University Press, 1957; in paperback in 1971). Like the "Ancilla," it aged fairly quickly in a period of intense interest in the Pre-Socratics; the more so because it covered historical and philosophical problems. Unlike the "Ancilla," however, this edition of the book was replaced by the extensively revised Second Edition, by Kirk, Raven, and M. Schofield, in 1983 (quickly issued in paperback, and reissued with a bibliographic update in 1995); for which the publisher as well as the editors/translators deserve gratitude. It remains the first place to go. (In the Second Edition, the translations, previously relegated to italics at the foot of the page, were moved into the main text in roman type; a great convenience to new Greekless readers, a distraction at first to those, like me, who had become accustomed to jumping back and forth on the page.) It included a section from the "Derveni Papyrus," the first closely datable "Orphic" text with philosophical content. (A carbonized-during-cremation papyrus was discovered in 1962 in an undisturbed tomb; the long-promised "full edition" of this discovery is, at this writing, still to be published sometime "soon." Gabor Betegh's 2004 volume "The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation" contains another preliminary text and translation, with references to the already extensive literature.)
However, despite my admiration for Kirk-Raven-Schofield, there are places where it becomes very technical indeed; enough to make this reader turn back to the simplicity of Freeman with relief, for at least a while.
[Addendum, September 2015: Having recently had a chance to consult it at some length, I would now add to the list of additional, or alternative, readings, the 500-some pages of “The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy,” edited by A.A. Long (Cambridge University Press, 1999). This is currently available in paperback and Kindle editions (and see also Cambridge Companions Online). It contains some not-too-technical surveys of the evidence, and its problems, as well as studies of individual philosophers, and groups of philosophers, including a discussion of related topics, such as rationalism in early Greek historical and medical literature.]
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