Which 'Josephus' is Closer to the Original? Pseudo-Hegesippus Book 3 Chapter 19 or Bellum Judaicum Book 3 Chapter 9?

We had a very important discovery in our last citation of the comparative study of the two narratives, Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War. But we only got there because we were patient enough to wade through the evidence systematically. No one before us has ever bothered to check if Hegesippus might have been a source for our received text of Jewish War. It was just assumed that things were the other way around.

So let's continue with our methodology. The next section in Hegesippus reads:

From there after a few days he returns to Ptolomaidis and from there he hastens to Caesarea, the greatest city of Judaea, but mostly filled with gentile inhabitants, for which reason they received the Roman army with applause and happiness not only from the favor of the Roman alliance having been longed for, but from an innate hatred also of the people of Judaea, whose leader Josephus they cried with the greatest clamor should be punished. Which Vespasian ignored in silence as the rabble's anger conceived without judgment. And because the season and the city were suitable for spending the winter, he stationed two legions in Caesarea, also the tenth and the fifth legion in the city of Scythopolis lest Caesarea should be worn away by the burden of the entire army. And therefore the celebrated city dedicated to Diana Scythica, although founded by Scythians, and named a city of the Scythians as Marseilles is of the Greeks. The location of the place reveals that the founders selected it more from the innate accessible hardness of the plains than from its advantages for the use of residences. For instance open to both the severity of winter and the burning season of summer it has more of labor than of pleasure, inasmuch as in winter they are open more to cold and the burning heat of summer is more severe in these places, in which they receive the entire sun without any pleasantness of a green field. And so the flat and coastal region of the renowned city is heated even more by the heat of the sea. [Pseudo-Hegesippus 19]

The parallel passage in Jewish War reads:

Now Vespasian returned to Ptolemais on the fourth day of the month Panemus, [Tamus] and from thence he came to Cesarea, which lay by the sea-side. This was a very great city of Judea, and for the greatest part inhabited by Greeks: the citizens here received both the Roman army and its general, with all sorts of acclamations and rejoicings, and this partly out of the good-will they bore to the Romans, but principally out of the hatred they bore to those that were conquered by them; on which account they came clamoring against Josephus in crowds, and desired he might be put to death. But Vespasian passed over this petition concerning him, as offered by the injudicious multitude, with a bare silence. Two of the legions also he placed at Cesarea, that they might there take their winter-quarters, as perceiving the city very fit for such a purpose; but he placed the tenth and the fifth at Scythopolis, that he might not distress Cesarea with the entire army. This place was warm even in winter, as it was suffocating hot in the summer time, by reason of its situation in a plain, and near to the sea. [Jewish War 3.9.1]

While the two accounts are very similar it is worth noting that Hegesippus provides some extra details about Sythopolis and its similarity to the Greek city of Marseilles in southern France. I wonder whether Jewish War can again be demonstrated to actually be summarizing Hegesippus. For one the Hegesippus is certainly more historically accurate when it says "although founded by Scythians, and named a city of the Scythians as Marseilles is of the Greeks." It seems to me at least that the editor of our received text of Jewish War just saw the comparison to the Greek city of Marseilles and said that Sythopolis was full of 'Greeks' which wasn't historically accurate. So too its report that "[t]his place was warm even in winter, as it was suffocating hot in the summer time, by reason of its situation in a plain, and near to the sea." The account seems to be a summary of the much fuller explanation in Hegesippus which takes the time to explain why a city was founded in this exact spot - "the location of the place reveals that the founders selected it more from the innate accessible hardness of the plains than from its advantages for the use of residences. For instance open to both the severity of winter and the burning season of summer it has more of labor than of pleasure, inasmuch as in winter they are open more to cold and the burning heat of summer is more severe in these places, in which they receive the entire sun without any pleasantness of a green field. And so the flat and coastal region of the renowned city is heated even more by the heat of the sea." This narrative just has sounds more authoritative. It is difficult to argue at the very least that the Pseudo-Hegesippus took Jewish War's one sentence "[t]his place was warm even in winter, as it was suffocating hot in the summer time, by reason of its situation in a plain, and near to the sea" and augmented it. The reference to the Scythians selecting the city BECAUSE OF THESE reasons - its remoteness and the unbearable heat - seems to be the original and Jewish War provides a shorthand summary of that account.