Both the Babylonians and the Egyptians held religious beliefs; but it is doubtful if the religious beliefs of either were so definite and formulated that they could be correctly called religions, according to our ideas of what constitutes a religion. An interesting fact is the wide difference between the beliefs of the two peoples, in view of the similarity of many of the other features of their civilizations. The beliefs of neither can be called highly spiritual; but of the two, the Egyptian seems to have been the more so. The Egyptians believed that the souls of those who had lived good lives would be rewarded; while the Babylonian belief did not include even a judgment of the dead. One of the most important inventions made in Babylonia was that of a code of laws. It is usually ascribed to a king named Hammurabi; but whether he was the real inventor or not, we have no means of knowing. We do know, however, that the first code of laws of which there is any record was invented in his reign, and that it was the prototype of all that have followed since. The influence on history of the invention and carrying into effect of a formulated code of laws, we cannot exactly gauge; but we may assert with confidence that modern civilization would not have been possible without codes of laws, and that the first code must have been more important than any code that followed, because it led the way. Both the Babylonians and the Egyptians seem to have made most of their inventions in the period of their youth, and to have become conservative as they grew older. The Babylonians were a great people until about the year 1250 B. C., when a subject city, Assur, in the north, threw off its allegiance and formed an independent state, Assyria. The decline of Babylonia continued until the fall of Assyria and the destruction of Nineveh, its capital, about the year 606 B. C., when the new Babylonian, or Chaldean Empire, came into existence. It enjoyed a period of splendid but brief prosperity until it was captured by Cyrus, king of Persia, in the year 538 B. C. Egypt's career continued until a later day; but it was never glorious in statesmanship, war or invention, after her youth had passed.