The historic representation of individuals and figures through artistic means is imbued with several different layers of social, political, and religious importance and not just pure aesthetic realism. This can also vary between the realistic and idealizing elements of representation when you look at the differing values each social classes has when they depicting themselves and weather the audience that is interpreting this depiction is the general public or a smaller circle of individuals from the same social and economic class, such as their close intimate family and friends.

One can make an argument that the Romans had a strong fashion for "accurate" representations of individuals in the form of Verism or a "True to life" art style that started to become popular during the late Republic. The Patrician Torlonia bust, the head and shoulders of a roman patrician is probably the most notable example of this. Possibly being a representation of Cato the Elder, it depicts an unidealized and elderly statesman with a face lined and worn with age, large protruding ears match by an even larger nose over a perpetually creased frown.

However at the same time there was a great deal of influence from other the Mediterranean societies such as the Greeks and Egyptians leading for there to be a strong influence of Hellenistic idealism and classism on the visual arts as well. This lead to instances of where there would often be statues of veristic heads of different Emperors during the Imperial period attached to full generic bodies often in heroic poses, often emulating popular images of the great Roman general, the learned philosopher and powerful local or Imperial deities.

But this goes both ways as Emperors and the public themselves would then start to physically emulate the popular trends of the time through their body shapes, haircuts and clothing. Hadrian for example, being the first emperor to adopt the Greek habit of wearing a beard through his love for Hellenistic culture. A fashion that was then adopted by his successor Antonius Pius and most notably Marcus Aurelius, who is popularly known as the philosopher-Emperor. This was because of his writings but also because he fostered this image of a philosopher through depicting himself in a Hellenistic fashion, which was adopted from emulating Hadrian, who intern was trying to emulating the image of a stereotypical ancient Greek philosopher.

Even when we steps away from sculpture to paintings such as the Fayum mummy portraits from Roman Egypt they depict a wonderful range of images of the people that were buried there in a very true to life style. However, they are still stylized such as with the Portrait of the Boy Eutyches. The eyes here are much larger, and the skin is much more uniform, unscarred, and unblemished when compared to real life, if could take a photo of them for example. But it makes sense for a wealthy upper class funerary image to show the individual in a idealized light when memorializing them even if there is a core for a realistic depiction there, especially when it is commissioned by a family for a deceased child and when there is a layer of religious significance involved with passing on to the afterlife.

I would even make the argument that now a days there isn't as much a norm for realistic visual depictions of individuals even with existence of the camera, there is always a layer of aestheticism attached that is often culturally and socially imposed that require modifications and touch-ups to be necessary. Realistic paintings such as those of John Singer Sargent are realistic but also masterfully laid out as a whole to show his wealthy clients in the most ideal light. Presently there are also filters and apps that distort and modify the proportions of our bodies and face to make them more ideally "instragramable". Conversely there are also many people who see these modified images of people and get surgeries to not look like a person but look like the digital representation of that person in order to get this idealized physical form that is popular right now.

So when we talk about a reasonably accurate visual depiction we have to be careful as it shifts both culturally and through time as people are always interested in having a say in what the image of themselves shall be. Especially when they known their is an audience as images are what we can convey our power and influence through.