The ideal of maximal flags of a poset

We study algebraic and homological properties of facet ideals of order complexes of posets which we call ideals of maximal flags of posets or simply flag ideals. We characterize the unmixed and Cohen-Macaulay flag ideals of graded posets. We also give structural results for the multigraded Betti numbers of flag ideals of such posets. The structural results on multigraded Betti numbers of flag ideals are used to characterize the class of flag ideals with linear resolutions.