English to Chinese Social Sciences History Intellectual History

The foregoing account is, not doubt, a simplification of the famous Socratic method, but it does show what the Athenians were up against in Socrates. He disturbed them... But they put up with him for a long time. When he was an old man, Athens was in the midst of the letdown that followed her defeat by Sparta. Through some political intrigues that we do not know in detail, Socrates was made a scapegoat and tried for what really seemed to his opponents atheism, treasonous freedom of speech, corrupting the youth. He was convicted, though by a close vote of the jury, and, refusing to compromise by accepting exile, chose to die. He was, of course, a martyr to the cause of freedom of speech, and therefore of democracy and progress. But before you condemn too wholeheartedly those who condemned him, ask yourself whether you like gadflies.

这里的 what the Athenians were up against in someone 应该怎么翻译呢？